travelling allrite

These past two weekends we have been out exploring in our backyard. Kurnell is one of my favourite little spots in Sydney, in no small part because it doesn't feel like it is part of the city. A small township at the southern entrance to Botany Bay you pass through a break in suburbia to reach it, past mangrove wetlands and sand mining, industrial estates and specialist sports grounds. Once the Caltex fuel refinery sprawled at the end of the peninsula, the bright flame flickering like a lighthouse. Now the white tanks have been converted into a petroleum fuel import terminal, a long jetty poking out into the bay. In contrast to the grandiose mansions and ugly red brick apartment blocks that line the western shores of the bay, the houses of Kurnell are more akin to modest beach huts and holiday homes. There are only a few shops and cafes, including the one at we have a brunch of hamburgers, a combined post office and cafe at the beachfront. A few jets descend over the shimmering fla...

It is confirmed. After almost fifty years, Qantas will farewell its Boeing 747 jumbo jet from service. Before the last 747, VH-OEJ, flies off to the boneyard in the United States on July 22, Qantas announced it would operate three farewell flights with passengers in Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra. I was unsuccessful in booking seats on the Sydney and Canberra flights, getting as far as selecting seats before the system failed to proceed and was bitterly disappointed, along with so many others. Burdened by work and indecision, I was too slow to drive to a vantage point to watch the Sydney overflight. So I grabbed my binoculars and good camera and stood at the top of the driveway. The view for passengers must have been amazing as it twisted and turned at low altitude over the city, up to the Central Coast, then close overhead along the Georges River and out west. Finally, I watched it sink past the city skyline before it disappeared as it landed back at Sydney Airport.

When you are thirty thousand feet in the air the choice is usually very simple. Do you want the chicken, beef, fish or vegetarian? Usually it's not even that, but it's your choice, limited though it is. Stuck here on the ground, it all depends what in the freezer and what the rest of the family are likely to eat with you. Then you (or your darling partner) have to prepare it yourself. Though we are fortunate to have some pretty decent culinary skills in this house (especially when it comes to my partner) and although I've had some pretty poor meals up in the air recently, if I even felt like eating them at all, I have found myself dreaming of aeroplane meals a bit lately. Even if they give you a descriptive menu, you are never quite sure exactly what you are going to get when you peel off that foil and take your first look at the hot meal deposited on your tray table. It's not like those frozen supermarket meals with the clear wrap or enticing photos on the box. You jus...

This is the first weekend since March that we have been allowed to travel outside our local region. I'm still very wary of COVID-19, but the other two were desperate to get out of the house. On Saturday morning I drove us under clear blue skies down a very busy and, at times, very slow Hume Motorway to Berrima in the Southern Highlands. We joined the socially distanced queue to buy pies at the Gumnut Patisserie near the old post office, then condiments from further down the street, breathed the chill air scented with bare winter poplars and other imported deciduous trees. It was still early, so we continued on, back towards the coast past Fitzroy Falls, where rangers were directing traffic away from the packed carpark, and down the steep and tightly winding path of Moss Vale Road down the escarpment to Kangaroo Valley. I could barely take my eyes of the road, but what glimpses of the view down the valley were spectacular, as if we were flying above the landscape. Past the town of K...