dagbostar

Yes, there is a huge "living museum" called Soverign Hill in Ballarat that is a replica of a Gold Rush town. Growing up there were old mines all around where we lived, and things called "mullock" heaps, which was basically large hills made from the dirt the miners had dug up and discarded. Apparently there is a huge amount of gold still beneath the town but the cost of mining it outstrips the values. My brother still goes looking for gold with a metal detector and finds very small pieces most weekends. Hope you and all your Ballarat, Sulky (don't know that place) and Bendigo rellies are all good.

Hilarious - this is literally my FSX experience. Got back into it a few weeks ago, bought a yoke and rudders, dusted off FSX which I bought for £4 ages ago in a Steam sale, tried X-Plane (computer not powerful enough), looked at PSD and though they are joking right - $US200 and they tell you it's not a consumer flight sim ... Anyway, having lots of fun tweaking, discovering FSUIPC and Chase Plane (both amazing fun) and bought an A2A C182 (wow, difficult!), and the DHC-2 from MilViz, but spending most of my time learning how to fly in Carenado's C152 from Steam (great little plane ... very forgiving). In between tweaking (75% of my time), I have finally managed to do a pattern, touch and goes and now the table my yoke is bolted too doesn't shake as I try to land, it barely moves :-) Next up is ratching up the realism on the planes and one day flying from my (virtual) home base of Homer Alaska, to Ballarat in Australia where I grew up. Figure that'll keep me going for a good decade!