Planespotting

We had breakfast in the cafe at Brighton Beach yesterday morning. Unlike its namesake, Brighton NSW boasts a cracking view across the ugly industry on the banks of Botany Bay. It also has a cracking view of the airport runway. The bacon butty was just a ruse to go planespotting.

I've noticed recently how being so far from home breaks down the usual inhibitions. It's not as though you are going to see anyone you know, and anyway, there are plenty of other oddbods in any big city, so you can be as mad as a bike and nobody cares. This leaves me free to indulge my darker side as a planespotter, or rather, as an admirer of Boeing 747 jumbos, especially Qantas ones. It's quite a specific hobby. You could say it's a niche market.

Here are a couple of shots I took with our zoom lense in between holding the short-wave radio to my ear and scanning for control tower broadcasts. Darren and Ella wandered off onto the beach, unable to cope with the shame of sitting next to such an anorak. This made me look as though I was alone, which probably looked twice as bad.

On the way back we spotted an even better vantage point, but there's no cafe. That's going to be a tough call.