As We Must Appear to the Hawk #7

Alain de Botton was in Australia recently promoting his new book News. I didn't get to see him sadly, and I haven't read News yet. I do still think of his Art of Travel each time I fly and look out of the window.

I had a window seat on my recent flight from Sydney to the Gold Coast.

Bondi

Pacific blue

Nelson's Bay

Surfer's Paradise

Burleigh Heads National Park
where I would walk a few days later
but didn't know that yet

Looking towards the Gold Coast Hinterland

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As we must appear to the hawk #6

Recently I was lucky enough to fly to Adelaide. I hadn't been to Adelaide for several decades, and now I've been twice in the last 18 months or so. I like window seats on short flights, so booked a window seat both ways. This was my Sydney to Adelaide flight.

Botany Bay

Kurnell

The beautiful blue Pacific

The coast south of Sydney

The clouds were cool this particular day

The dams are emptying

I love this shot

Rivers are great to see

I like the contrast between manmade and natural patterns

This pond or dam looked like a silhouette 

Australia is vast

Crop circles?

The jacarandas were out in force
I mainly associate jacarandas with Sydney,
but it seems they are big in Adelaide too

A classic view of Adelaide coming in to land. 

I've shown you an Adelaide- Sydney flight before.

Saturday Snapshot is a wonderful weekly meme now hosted by WestMetroMommy

As we must appear to the hawk #5

I always like peering out of a plane window. Now you can peer out with me. This is a recent flight from Sydney to Melbourne. 

Taking off over Sydney is always wonderful

The biggest beach is Bondi

Australian Alps is a bit of a grand term
but still, there is snow

And ski resorts

It took me a while to work out what was wrong in this next image. Large areas just looked dead. Then I realised it was land affected by the terrible fires on Saturday February 7 2009 (I'm pretty sure that's what it is anyway). A day that became known as the Black Saturday fires. 173 people died that day. 

It was sobering to see it still look so awful

Melbourne, a bit hazy
and I suspect I inadvertently had manual focus on

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As we must appear to the hawk #4

In May I flew to Adelaide for the Children's Book Council of Australia 2012 Conference. It was great. Luckily I got a window seat for the Adelaide-Sydney trip. It was interesting. I hadn't been to Adelaide since the 80s!

Bye Adelaide. I didn't see all that much of you.

A quick glimpse of the SA coast

A cool round rainbow played on the clouds

It was interesting to watch the green fade

and the brown

and red 

take over

An oxbow in the making!

It's always fabulous to fly over Sydney, always something to see,
no matter which approach you are on, like the old Olympic site

Or the harbour that still makes me gasp every time I see it

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As we must appear to the hawk #3

The second stage of my flight from Tasmania to Sydney last September. I had to take two flights, the first from Launceston- Melbourne. And this one from Melbourne to Sydney. 

Taking off from Melbourne

Textures of Australia

Looking south down the New South Wales coast

The mighty Pacific

Familiar Sydney coastline- Kurnell

Saturday Snapshot, is a wonderful weekly meme from at home with books

As we must appear to the hawk #2

I've always loved looking out of plane windows, down at the world below. Reading Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel last year confirmed it, and helped me start this series of plane window visions. These are from a recent flight from Launceston to Melbourne. 

Tasmania is famous for rugged mountains

and verdant valleys

I caught just a glimpse of the Tamar River

and the Northern Tasmanian coastline

before coming in to a stormy afternoon in Melbourne

Saturday Snapshot, is a wonderful weekly meme from at home with books

As we must appear to the hawk #1

I recently listened to Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel. He held my attention for most of it, but he really grabbed me when he described the view from a plane window, (I've always loved photos taken from plane windows).

And to think that all along, hidden from our sight, our lives were this small: the world we live in but almost never see; the way we must appear to the hawk and to the gods.

If the hawk, or the gods, were traveling with me recently from Houston to LAX they would have glimpsed this too....

Smoke, not smog leaving Houston

Much of Texas was on fire

You can almost see the curvature of the Earth!

What appeared to be a large quarry in the middle of suburban LA

Smog not smoke over LA

Saturday Snapshot, is a wonderful weekly meme from at home with books