Commencing at 8:00am, ABC Radio Goulburn Murray broadcast live from the restoration hangar. At 9:00am Her Excellency Mrs Ardi Stois-Braken, Dutch Ambassador to Australia, was given a private tour of the project to meet our volunteers, followed by morning tea with local dignitaries.

The weather was perfect and members of the Antique Car Club Albury Wodonga began assembling a display of vintage cars in our car park. Doors opened to the public at 10am.

The feature of the 90th Anniversary Open Day, was the launch of the English edition of In Drie Dagen Naar Australië, a rare 1935 book written by Koene Parmentier, the captain of the Uiver. In To Australia in Three Days, Parmentier describes in detail the flight of the Uiver in the 1934 London to Melbourne air race, especially the drama of the emergency landing at the Albury racecourse. The book was translated from Dutch by Henry Dekker, who travelled to Albury from the Netherlands for the launch.

The book also gives an insight into the euphoria the Uiver’s achievement created in The Netherlands, Australia and what was then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) where huge crowds besieged the plane and hailed its crew as conquerors of distance.

As an important contribution to the Uiver story, launching the book was a major part of the anniversary celebrations and, with the connection between Albury and The Netherlands still robust today, the Dutch ambassador, Mrs Ardi Stoios-Bracken, was our special guest, to officially unveil the Uiver story in Parmentier’s own words.

Copies left the open day book stall in a steady stream and online sales continued until the book sold out. To complement the book, aviation historian David Crotty gave a talk on the 1934 air race and the Uiver’s landing at Albury.

Other attractions at the open day included live music of the era by Albury Wodonga Ukulele Group, a LEGO® display by Bricks on the Border, displays by Twin Cities Model Aero Club, the Albury LibraryMuseum and the Albury and District Historical Society. The Rotary Club of Albury West kindly provided a BBQ lunch.