I'm in Melbourne this week. Normally I'd be really happy about that - I love Melbourne and think it's a great city to be in. But this time it's a bit different. It's the first time I've had to come down here for work while leaving my partner at home in Brisbane. That puts a whole new spin on the joy of travel.
This is a business trip, too. I've been assigned to an exciting new project and have to spend at least this week in the Melbourne office. Fortunately, after this first week or so I'll be able to do most of my work from Brisbane. That suits me perfectly.
While I'm down here though I'm going to catch up with one of my best friends. We'll be going out tomorrow night for dinner. There's a vegetarian restaurant somewhere in Fitzroy that he wants to try, so that ought to be interesting.
In the meantime, I'm stuck in my hotel room. Melbourne is having a winter heat wave at the moment, so it's not actually as cold as it could be, but it's still not all that warm either. Why can't they schedule these trips in summer!!???
Anyway, that's about it - I'm looking forward to getting home on Friday night, just in time to see the Leslie Howard concert at QPAC.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Missing home in Melbourne
Friday, June 12, 2009
New Zealand trips
I've been to New Zealand twice since I last signed in here. The photos shown here are just a few of those I took, but I thought I'd share them around.
I only made it to the North Island, as it was a work trip. I would love to go back to the South Island one day.
Monday, January 7, 2008
I hate QANTAS (or, Christmas holidays continued...)
I haven't had a good year with QANTAS. They've now officially managed to stuff me around twice this year (out of two trips, that's a pretty impressive record).
I don't think I wrote about the first stuff-up when it happened. It was a the end of my Vietnam/Cambodia trip, trying to get home to Brisbane. Since I was travelling with friends from Melbourne, our international flight left from there. And returned there. That was fine - I didn't mind that, and it actually saved a bit of money. But from Melbourne back to Brisbane I booked a QANTAS domestic flight. I'd left around 2.5 hours between the international arrival time and the domestic departure, but our Malaysian Airlines flight got in to Melbourne quite a bit earlier than scheduled. That was great - I thought I'd be able to get home earlier than planned. When I went to check in with QANTAS, though, the woman on the checkin desk was pretty rude. I asked if I could get on an earlier flight, since I was now over 3.5 hours early for my booked flight. She checked my backpack through, said she was busy, and told me to go to the service desk. I thought that was a bit strange, especially since she checked my luggage in, but went to the service desk anyway. When I asked about earlier flights they said of course they could do that, right up until they realised that my luggage was checked in. At that point there was apparently nothing they could do. So, because the woman on the check-in desk couldn't be bothered spending 30 seconds to give me some good advice, I was stuck in Melbourne airport with nothing to do for hours. And hours. After a long international flight. I was tired, bored, and now angry. So - strike one against QANTAS.
The second problem was coming home again to Brisbane, this time from Hobart after Christmas. I booked the return trip with QANTAS, but they put me on JetStar for a flight to Melbourne, then connecting to a QANTAS flight to Brisbane. I'm never doing that again. First of all, because I was changing from JetStar to QANTAS and it was all on one booking, I couldn't use the web check-in function. Not a big deal, but a bit annoying. Then, even though I'd booked the whole trip through QANTAS, they can't transfer luggage between the airlines. So I had to get off in Melbourne, collect my suitcase, and then re-checkin with the QANTAS flight. That was very annoying - especially since JetStar was running a bit late at this point. And just to top it off, JetStar enforces its 20kg baggage limit. QANTAS lets you take up to 32kg without charge, but JetStar doesn't. I had 22.5kg in my suitcase, and so had to pay excess baggage charges for the first time ever. Not happy there, either!
I assumed, that since it was all on a QANTAS ticket and they chose to put me on JetStar (since QANTAS flights to/from Hobart are now few and far between) then QANTAS rules should apply. And that they'd take care of tranferring my luggage. Wrong on all counts. This is the last time I ever take a booking with tranfers between QANTAS and JetStar - it's really not worth the hassle. Next time if QANTAS offers me flight options with these transfers I'll fly Virgin instead. Every time!
I could have avoided all this, of course, if I'd fully read all the terms and conditions, rather than just assuming that QANTAS would do what I thought was the right thing. Silly me! It was all in the fine print, of course. Still, it is definitely the worst travel option I could have come up with, and it wont be happening again.
Thanks, QANTAS! It wasn't a good year for you, I'm afraid!
Happy New Year 2008
I have had a very lazy holiday over Christmas and New Year. It's been great. But now I'm back at work, and trying to get into the swing of 2008.
I don't make new year resolutions. I really can't see the point in setting goals that I almost certainly will forget about. I've made resolutions in the past and pretty much given up on them within days. Or weeks at the most... So, no resolutions for this year. I'll just be concentrating on longer-term goals that I've already thought about.
Actually, I didn't stay awake long enough on New Years Eve to even see the new year in. How slack is that? I was in bed by 11 and fast asleep. I'll blame my friends for being too lazy to go out for the night - that's my excuse. I guess we're all a little bit over the whole party scene, dodging drunken teenagers on the waterfront or in the nightclubs. Anyway... (the new year is making me feel old, can you tell?)
The two weeks holiday itself was very good, though. I went to Tassie for 10 days, before spending a final few days at home in Brisbane before heading back to work this morning. As usual, the weather in Hobart was pretty average. A lot of it was cold and overcast, with a couple of good days over the weekend. It even broke 30 degrees on new years eve, so I jumped in the water and went swimming. The Tasmanian water is always so refreshingly cold, isn't it? But then on New Years day, for our family bbq, the temperature didn't even make it to 20. We still had a good time though - fresh salmon and sausages on the bbq, with some of mums salads and raspberry ice cream cake. Yum! It's just a shame we couldn't include a swim at the beach as part of the fun.
I love going home to Hobart for a holiday. I don't feel like a tourist there, and so there's no pressure to go off sightseeing, there's no list of attractions to see or activities to do. I spent my time catching up with family and friends, and then doing nothing. Just a few days of lazing around the house doing nothing, walking on the beach, reading or watching the cricket made for a fantastic holiday, a holiday that felt twice as long as it actually was. After what had been a pretty hectic couple of months leading up to Christmas I needed that break.
It was particularly good to see my grandfather again. He's looking quite a bit older and frailer than he did even a few months ago, unfortunately. Old age really is unfair, isn't it? It's certainly not his mind that's slowing up, but his body just can't keep up anymore. Still, he's doing pretty well, and is a lot better than many people his age. I just hope I take after him!
I also caught up with a few friends while in Tassie. If I was making new year resolutions, one would be to make more of an effort to keep in touch with these people. I really don't see them or talk to them often enough. I'm hoping that at least a few of them will come and visit me sometime this year.
So that was my Christmas. It was fun, the best holiday I've had for a while now. I just wish, really wish, I wasn't back at work this morning!
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Home again
I'm back! Yep, made it home from China in one piece. What a trip - I'm very glad to be home.
The job was a bit of a mess. I spent most of my time in the office, unfortunately, up to 11 hours a day for 6 days of the week. I got my part of the work done, and managed to help out slightly on some other parts but its still a mess. And I'm glad to be back out of there.
I couldn't access blogger while in China - or rather, I couldn't view my blog, or any blog with the words blogspot or wordpress in the address. Oh well, I guess I didn't miss too much there, but the Great Firewall of China exists, and it doesn't like me.
Shanghai is an impressive city. Dirty, though. I couldn't believe how polluted the air is. While I was there, there were quite a few days that weren't cloudy. But even on the clearest of days with the sun shining the sky wasn't blue. All I could see was grey skies, with a faint blue tinge directly overhead. All around the horizon was grey and hazy. The buildings just faded away into the haze, and visibility was very bad. The day I went up to the viewing deck of the Oriental Pearl TV tower I could barely see across the river to the Bund. Anything beyond the Bund was invisible in the haze. Very disappointing. It does make me wonder how the olympics will go in Beijing next year, though.
The other thing I really didn't like was the aggressive approach taken by street selles. Wandering along Nanjing Road I just couldn't get away from people trying to sell me watches, dvds, t-shirts, shoes, belts, bags or in some cases, girls. As soon as I got rid of one seller, another would appear beside me and follow me down the road. If I got rid of him, then there would be another by my side in a matter of seconds. It really took all the fun out of just wandering around the city. I was always having to fend off their approaches. That happened pretty much everywhere I went in shanghai by myself - Nanjing Road, the Old Town, the French Concession, anywhere with shops and tourists.
The city does have an amazing history, though. I'd have liked to see a bit more of it, but didn't have a chance on this trip. Too much work going on for me to play the tourist. The shopping was good, but not as cheap as other parts of Asia. I did buy a few dodgy DVDs, which I haven't actually tried out yet. They work fine in the computer but whether they play on the dvd player I don't know yet. I bought a couple of items at BlueShanghaiWhite, which does a modern take on traditional Chinese pottery. I bought a vase and a couple of coffee cups that I thought were quite attractive. They had some lovely candle holders too, which I should have bought. Ah well - unfortunately it doesn't look like you can order them over the internet. But apart from that I didn't do much shopping because the aggressive approach of the sellers on the street just turned me right off. In some cases, in the Old Market area (YuYuan markets) they'd even come out of the shops and try and drag me in. I just wanted to browse and see what I could find but they kept throwing things in my face and dragging me here and there - I don't like that approach at all and so just didn't buy anything from them.
Still, I'd like to go back and take a longer look at the place. As far as Asian cities go its one of the better ones to end up in, I think.
Friday, November 23, 2007
China China China
Well, I'm in Shanghai, although all I've seen of it so far is the hotel and the office. The hotel is fine, but nothing special. It's the Rainbow Hotel, out in Hongqiao. But it is just a hotel - the only advantage is that it's only 5 minutes walk to the office.
I'm still not thrilled about being here for work. I'd love to come here and explore on a holiday, but getting thrown into the project like this at the last minute is not something I wanted. Ah well... it's a new city, new job. I'll get out and explore a bit over the weekend.
As for this blog - I can log in and add posts. But I can't actually just view it as a web page. Or any blog, for that matter. Any website that has blogspot or wordpress in the address doesn't work from here. I guess that's the Great Firewall in action. There's probably a way around it but I'll just live with it for now. Got to love that firewall!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
What a crazy week
Well, it's been a bit of a crazy week around here. Sometimes work just sucks, you know?
It began on Monday, when one of our company managers rang and asked me (again) to go to China. Normally I would jump at a chance like that - company sponsored travel to somewhere I haven't been before is always a nice perk. But I'd been trying to avoid this job, because of the chaos that seems to be happening over there at the moment. I'd been asked before to look at some of this project work, and had decided I really didn't want to get involved. They're at a point in the project where they are presenting the results to our customer, and basically it doesn't work. Or so I've heard. So - results? One unhappy customer, some very stressed project staff, no time to sort it out. And that's when they ask me to go there - just in time to present it to the customer again without any real information or preparation. How fair is that? I wanted to stay as far away from this sort of mess as possible.
If they'd actually asked me a couple of months ago, when I could have made a difference by getting in early and working on it, then it would all have been ok. I could have prepared, maybe even helped them avoid some problems. Who knows? But its all a bit late now... anyway...
So I'm off to China on Wednesday. I guess I am excited about it - I do love travelling when I get the chance. I rushed into Brisbane on Thursday and applied for the visa. Fortunately they can do it overnight, instead of the normal four working days. I picked it back up on Friday morning. There were fairly long queues each day, which I wasn't expecting. Apparently China is quite the destination at the moment. But they were fast, and pretty efficient. Only complaint - they wouldn't accept my company AMEX card as payment. Just a minor pain, when it comes to reporting the expenses for the trip.
On top of all that excitement, I've been rushing around putting the finishing touches on my current project, trying to do some troubleshooting for a site in New Zealand and dealing with another strange request from a local customer. They always want to do things that are just not part of the standard system. Which is fine, because we get to charge them lots of money for making it work the way they want. Its just the timing that sucks.
So I'll be away for a few weeks. Good fun :)
Friday, September 21, 2007
The road never ends... updated again!
On a related note - the people that brought you the map of visited countries now also bring you a map showing all the important places you've visited. Apparently I've been to 17 of the top 100 destinations! Cool!
Here's the map.
visited 17 destinations out of a beenda's top 100 destinations.
create your own map
The road never ends... updated
Since I've now been to another three countries on my latest trip (Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia) I thought it was time to update this map. Here's the new version.
Create your own visited countries map
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Photos! and more photos! Vietnam and Cambodia
So here's a few of my holiday photos. Thought I'd post them here, just to see if the slide show thing works. Enjoy!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
All Templed Out...
And the final email from Cambodia...
Well,the sunrise over Angkor Wat was a bit of a washout. It is the wet season, so there are plenty of clouds hanging around. Basically the sun rose into a cloud bank, with very few colours or spectacular effects. It just got gradually lighter, and not much else. Still, it was worth a try I guess...We wont be trying it tomorrow,though - once was enough!
For the rest of today we toured a few more temples. I've got temple fatigue now. There seems to be o end of them after a while, and they begin to look all the same. They're all beautiful in their own way, but trying to cram them into two days is way too much. We managed to see all the main temples, including the one where the movie Tomb Raider was shot. There are no signs pointing it out, but the tour guides don't let you miss any of the important movie sites !
After that, it was just a final trip around the markets looking for souvenirs, then a quick swim in the hotel pool. That part of the day was great. I can always spend time by the pool, or the beach... but after two days of solid walking around temples and jungle it was nice just to kick back for an hour or so.
It's not all relaxation and natural beauty though. At every temple entrance there were bands of musicians playing. They are all victims of land mines, and make a living selling CDs of their music to tourists. There are lots of beggars around with missing limbs too - we saw one boy about 16 working in one of the markets and he had two false feet. It was a shock to see that as he was walking quite normally, until you looked down at them. They're still working at clearing landmines from all across the country (and in Vietnam too) and wont be finished for years yet. The markets are full of books about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot - the fighting wasn't all that long ago. It's all pretty sad - like I said earlier, this part of the world has had a very rough time over the last 50-100 years. And they're all still incredibly poor. I spent $15 tonight on dinner - the average monthly wage is $40. Anyway...
So the trip is almost over. Tomorrow morning we head for the airport and a flight to Kuala Lumpur. Then on Friday night we're on a plane home... not looking forward to getting home. Maybe I'll just take a plane and head on somewhere else...
Cambodia - Angkor Wat
From the first part of our stop in Cambodia...
Just a quick one tonight, as it's late and I want to go to bed. we're off to see the
sunrise over Angkor Wat in the morning, starting from the hotel at 5am... not my idea of agood time to get out of bed while I'm on holiday! But it should be worth it, I think.
Anyway, we're in Cambodia now. We're in Siem Reap, which is the town just next to
the whole Angkor Wat area. We spent today exploring some of the temples. We'll check out a few more tomorrow before heading off on Thursday. This place is just amazing. Its hard to believe they carved this huge temple complext out of the jungle over 1000 years ago. We''ve all taken lots of photos, of course, but they just don't give you the whole picture.
They also don't give you the heat, and the humidity. I hate the humidity - it just
drains me completely after a while. And we've been walking all day today, climbing over stone temples out in the sun.
The final few days of Vietnam were great, too. The two day on the beach at Mui Ne were the best - not too hot or wet, and we just sat by the pool for most of our time there. That's more like a holiday. The Mekong Delta was hot, wet and sticky - interesting, but I'm in no hurry to go back there.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. Just a few more days until we head home - wish I could extend
the trip another week or two.
Vietnam part 2 - Tunnels and Temples
Part two - Cu Chi and Cao Dai.
So - part two of the trip!
Yesterday we went off to see the Cu Chi tunnels and the Cao Dai temple. Both were
interesting, but the tunnels were definitely the highlight. It was a full day trip, on the bus most of the time. That in itself was really nice after all the walking we'd done on the previous day. My feet are complaining about this trip already, even if the rest of me isn't :)
Anyway, we started at the Cao Dai temple. Cao Dai means High Tower, and is a religion that is unique to Vietnam. Basically you take all the religions you can think of and mix them up together. They have a pope, who is picked by conducting a seance with the ancestors. Their saints include Victor Hugo, the french poet. The temple was decorated with pink dragons for some reason, with a great eye sitting on top of a globe, symbolising the One God that rules over all. They pray and have a service in the temple four times a day, and we got to see one of the services which involved a lot of chanting, gongs and incense.
After lunch we went off to the Cu Chi tunnels. This was the main highlight of the day. THe tunnels were used during the war by the local guerillas, and stretched for around 250km all through the area. The original tunnels were 60cm, by 80cm - just enough room for a small person to crawl through on their stomach. They've also put in a few lights - definitely not an original feature. Fortunately, they've enlarged them for tourists, so this section was 120 * 160cm. I could get through these if I crouched. Still, it was pitch black in sections and went for aroudn 100m. It was all very claustrophobic. I can't imagine using them to live in and fight from. Apparetnly they tunneled into the nearby US base during the war and would pop up at night and shoot at them from inside the base. It took quite a while for the Americans to catch on, but they couldn't clear all the tunnels.
There was also a museum area, showing the different types of booby traps used by the
guerillas. They involved pits full of bamboo spikes and rusty nails in various combinations. It all looked very nasty. And there was a ruined American tank, blown up by a landmine and left where it was destroyed. The entire back half of the tank was a twisted ruin.
It was quite a sobering experience all around. Everywhere we've been so far there are
reminders of the war - from the markets with army surplus, to old planes and tanks, museums - it's just everywhere. In that respect its been a holiday that makes you think about all that's happened.
But from here on it gets lighter. Tomorrow we're off on a twoday tour of the Mekong
delta. And that's followed by two days on the beach at Mui Ne. Both should be great side trips. I think we've seen most of what Saigon ahs to offer, so it'll be a good to move on,
Hopefully I'll get another chance at the internet in a couple of days. Talk to you then
Hi from Vietnam
Well, I'm back from holiday! Here's a couple of emails I sent to friends while I was away - but forgot to post them here. Oh well - better late than never, I guess.
Just a quick hello to say that we all made it safe and sound to Ho Chi Minh City. It's been a big two days, of course, with all the travelling etc. Flying from Brisbane to Vietnam via Melbourne really is the long way of doing things. Anyway...
We got to the hotel around lunch time on Sunday. After a quick lunch we went for a walk to some nearby markets, and attempted to get used to the traffic. I'd just about forgotten what it was like to have to step out into endless streams of traffic just to try and cross the road. They do avoid you though - those little scooters that everybody rides are pretty manouverable. I managed to avoid spending too much money at the markets, although I'll probably go back there at least once before we leave.
Today we toured some of the museums. The Fine Art museum was mostly modern art (post-war) so it's all about the glories of the communists and beating the Americans. Some of it is pretty good, even if the message isn't exactly subtle. The Reunification Palace was interesting - it's the old South Vietnamese presidential palace, and is pretty much exactly as it was in 1975. The final museum for the day was the War Remnants museum. Again a very one-sided story, but intense. It's full of photos and stories of abuses committed by various invaders of Vietnam (French, American, etc). Again, not exaclty subtle, but very powerful. People did awful things in this country.
Anyway, thats about it so far, apart from eating some great and cheap food! Tomorrow we're off to see the tunnels used by the VietCong and a couple of temples. Then later in the week we're off to the Mekong Delta for a couple of days, followed by an overnight trip to one of the nearby national parks. Should be good I'll let you know how it all goes, of course!
Friday, August 31, 2007
Spring Break!
It's the start of spring tomorrow. I can't wait for summer to come back - I'm definitely no fan of winter. Anyway, I'm heading off overseas tomorrow. I've taken a couple of weeks off work to go traveling. I've been really looking forward to the break.
In the meantime, though, here's a few spring photos taken around my place.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Climbing Mt Beerwah
I went off on Saturday to climb Mt Beerwah, in the Glasshouse Mountains. Somebody, who shall remain nameless for now, told me that it was just a steep bushwalk. Hah! Last time I trust him...
It was actually a great day for climbing a mountain. It was overcast, not too hot or windy, not raining. Perfect weather, in fact, for this sort of thing.
The walk starts easily enough. It's an easy walk from the carpark to the base of the mountain. But then it gets... difficult. The sign by the carpark should have warned me - it says the walk is for experienced climbers only. And here's me with vertigo! I really, really should have taken the hint.
Anyway... from the base of the mountain, the track becomes a steep scramble, or rock climb. The path goes pretty much straight up a rock slope, and it is climbing. At this point it is definitely not a walk. I'm not good with heights, and this was very tough. I wanted to give up at several points, but was silly enough to force myself onwards and upwards.
The rock slope ends, eventually. You come off the slope directly underneath the overhanging cliffs, with some beautiful erosion patterns int he rock. You might even get to admire them after you've recovered from the climb up what is practically a cliff face! 
From this point on, though, it's actually quite easy. Its still steep, but it's an actual walk from here. The views are spectacular. The track winds around from the western face, with views inland to the hills and across plantations and farms, to the climb to the summit. Along the way there are some great views back along the cliff face and towards the other Glasshouse Mountains.
From the summit there are views in all directions. It was hazy and smoky on Saturday, with a couple of fires burning back towards the coast. On a clear day there would be views back to Brisbane, and up the coast towards Noosa. On Saturday, though, most of this was obscured by the smoke. Still, it was very impressive. 
Fortunately, it was much easier to get down than it was to get up. I've noticed this before - I struggled on the climb up, feeling dizzy, sweaty palms on the climb up the rock face, but on the way down I didn't get vertigo at all. It was still tough on my ankles and knees, but I felt fine. I felt a lot more in control on the descent.
All up, I'm glad I managed to complete the climb. It was probably pretty silly, but it's also a bit embarrassing. There were lots of other people on the mountain, too. There were young kids practically running up the slope, and teenage girls in old sneakers who had no trouble with it. To me, they seemed to be taking some insane risks, but they were all fine and made it up and back quicker than I did. Anyway... I guess that's vertigo for you.
I don't think I'll be rushing out to do it again, but I'm glad I did it at least this once.
Friday, August 17, 2007
The road never ends...
This is a map of the countries I've been to over the last 10 years or so. There's a lot of red on this map, but that's because I've been to some large countries even if I haven't spent a whole lot of time in them (3 days in China - does that really count?)
Anyway - go create your own map at the link below.
Create your own visited countries map
And while you're there, they've got 7 rules for travelling!
Monday, August 13, 2007
South, south, south!
So, I spent the weekend in Hobart. It seems like a long way to go for a weekend, I know, but it's always fun. I love going home to Tassie, even if it is just for a few days.
I flew down from Brisbane on Saturday morning. I love the fact that there are direct flights from Brisbane to Hobart. It's only been possible for a few years, really, and the direct flights just save so much time. I flew Virgin, of course - I don't know why I even bother checking the Qantas prices anymore, as they are always more expensive. There's really not much to pick between them, anyway, except that you have to pay for your own food on Virgin. Thats certainly no big deal when you're talking about saving anything up to $100 on the flight.
Anyway... I love flying. I always get a window seat if I can. On the flight down to Hobart we went right over Sydney, and I had a wonderful view of the western suburbs. Not Sydneys most attractive view, I have to say - suburbs stretching off into the mountains. Victoria was covered in cloud, but that started breaking up as we flew over Bass Strait. We took the normal flight path to Hobart, so I had a lovely view of Flinders Island and the north-east coast of Tassie. I could see the snow on Ben Lomond, just peaking out between the clouds. Everything looked wet, which surprised me. I thought it had been pretty dry in Tassie, just like pretty much everywhere else. But apparently it had been raining all week, something I probably would have known if I'd bothered to watch the news last week. There were floods all over the place, too. I think it's now rained and flooded pretty much everywhere in the country except here in Brisbane. Oh well...
I didn't actually do much over the weekend. The whole point of going down there was to spend some time with my parents, and catch up with all the family. We had a big family dinner on Saturday night, which was great. That doesn't happen often enough, at least for me now that I live so far away from everyone else. Sunday I just hung around with my parents, and grandfather. I braved the cold, briefly, and went for a walk along the beach and around the neighbourhood with dad. Things are changing, of course - more houses going up, people moving on, etc. The place is still home, though, so the good parts haven't changed. Walking along the beach, even when it's freezing cold in the middle of winter, just makes me feel at home. Lying in bed at night, all I could hear was the waves on the beach. That's the sound of home for me, and is something I do miss here in Brisbane.
Unfortunately, it was an early flight out this morning. Monday is always a bad day to fly - too many people, higher prices etc. And I couldn't get the direct flight back to Brisbane so I had to change planes in Sydney. Another window seat for me, of course. For some reason we took a different flight path than I was expecting. Flying out of Tasmania we went right over the top of Ben Lomond. I could see Jacobs Ladder, all covered in snow. Since it was so soon after sunrise, the snow on the mountains looked stunning, but Launceston was still hidden in the shadows.
I also got a fantastic view of the ranges around Mt Kosciuszko. There's an impressive amount of snow on them at the moment, and with fog curling through the surrounding valleys it looked spectacular.
Then we flew right over the top of Canberra - right over the top of Parliament House. I was looking straight down on the flagpole. Can't say I've seen it from that angle before, and wouldn't it be interesting to send John Howard a message from that angle?
Hmmm...
Sydney is always nice to fly into, and this time was no exception. We came in over the western suburbs, circled around, and got a perfect view of the city, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. All the cliches in one short flight!
But that's why I love flying, even when the planes are full of more kids than a daycare centre. I love being able to look down and put a name to places I've never been and probably wont get to see from the ground. Looking down and wondering what people do in all these little towns we fly over. Dreaming about walking on all those beaches, in all those bays, on all those islands...
But it was just one weekend. I can't wait for a real holiday. I need a proper break... soon, soon, soon :)
