Travelog post for: Tiah Tigris

Well the moment we got into Bathurst we just went straight to Mount Panorama... how exciting was this going to be? There was still road works on the track fixing up the track from the races a week or so ago... and there was still damage to the track where there was some crashes. It was interesting to see... Sara says she's never been on the track after a race so she got to see some of the damage that she saw happen on the tv... kind of cool anyways...

You can't see it that well, but in the background you can see the huge sign on the mountain that says "Mount Panorama"... :-)


...and here we are entering the track... a lot of people ride on the track... they come from all over Australia... but there's a very strict speed limit of 60kph (around 40mph) on the track so people don't hurt themselves... you'll find the drivers that race on this track though during the races will top about 300kph... crazy!



...and here's the famous starting gate... on the left are the stands where the announcers are and the pits... and on the right is the huge grand stand full of people... here we go...













So that's the whole race track... you can see from the very top of the mountain how high you actually are... you have quite the view of the city... then you come down a very curvy road, which honestly would be very scary at 300kph... if you look closely in the Falkin sign near the end of the track (it's a blue sign on the side of the road) right in front of the toyvoyagers are some huge scrapes and some dents... on the qualifying races for the big race on Sunday one of the cars got t-boned by another car coming around that corner. He was taken to the hospital and put into critcal care... but now he's out of the hospital and just fine thankfully. He says he regrets not being able to race... but I'm sure he's more happy just to be alive. It was a pretty nasty crash. There was more scrapes and dents all over the track from other minor crashes. But no real big crashes happened this year... although something funny happened, a kangaroo jumped out onto the race track... apparently this happens a lot since kangaroos are all over Bathurst. This time the kangaroo was fine and they slowed the cars down and got the kangaroo off of the track... this was from 2007 when a kangaroo was on the track. That kangaroo had a very lucky escape from the cars and was unharmed... check it out... :-) and another lucky kangaroo that should be buying a lotto ticket I think... crazy!

...well next it was time to go and see the now famous statue that they unveiled during the races a week or so ago... a Peter Brock statue... he was the biggest winner at Mount Panorama with 9 wins under his belt. He died in a racing accident in 2006, so they made a statue to commemorate him at the track... here I am in front of it...


...and then walking back to the car I see that they had a little playground for the kids, I thought it was kind of cute with the Ford and Holden rocking cars with a little safety car in the middle... :-)


...and now it was time for the most exciting part of the day (well, one of the most exciting I thought driving on a famous race track was pretty exciting in itself)... but we got to go searching for kangaroos... Sara was pretty hopeful we'd see them since the last time they came in there were none to be found... and if it wasn't for Sara's husband's watchful eye she wouldn't have seen them... they were lying down in the grass until we came around... then they all stood up and had a look... a few of them were pretty close too but Sara didn't notice until they were bouncing away into the distance... here I am in front of them...

...can you see them?... well here are some closer photos since they were a bit of a distance away...




...well that was a really exciting day for me... but it's time to head home...


I'm having so much fun with Sara... who would know you could have so much fun outside of the cities and beaches of Australia... miss you mom!