Flying to Grafton

Off to the airport again. I know it well - have all my routines smoothly in place. Valet parking and club lounge make it more pleasant. Coffee and breakfast with the newspaper while I wait for my flight to be called. Late as usual. I see by my flight details that I’m on a small plane - I don’t mind them - it’s more personal than the big flights where you feel like live sheep being transported to Saudi Arabia as you are herded down the tunnels and chutes.

The flight is called and I take the long walk to Gate 22 on the lower level. The man at the door checks my boarding pass and says cheerfully, ‘Just follow the mob’. I smile as I step out the door and walk across the tarmac under the crisp blue sky of early morning. I always feel like I’m stepping into another world when I do this. I wander along past the first plane following the straggle of 10-12 people Suddenly I see the plane! What’s that? Hell, it’s small. I count the windows - seven. Have I ever been in anything this small? Don’t think so. Aren’t these the ones that tend to fall out of the sky. Errr…

Up the back steps, there’s the luggage bay - find my seat. Ah, well, at least there’s no hostess to tell me I can’t have my bags at my feet - good thing too as there are no overhead lockers.

Good view of the pilot from my seat - I could almost reach out and touch him. All the windows seem close to me.

We move into a long taxi-ing ride to the runway, then a quick take off over Botany Bay - the city spreads beneath me - the morning sun shines off the water. We head straight out to sea then turn north. White caps on the blue water. Sydney spreads out below softened by hazy light - tranquil and open - the distance blurs into cloud. I name the beaches as they go by - Bondi, Manly, Curl Curl, Narrabeen, Palm Beach.

The suburbs turn to bushland where the Hawkesbury enters the sea. We leave Sydney behind. But I take my desires with me. Very calm conditions today - serene and lovely.

The flight is running half an hour late - I guess my course will start late. Ah…well.

Magic of watching the landscape drift past below … patchwork of forested hills and cleared farmland and townships. Straight lines ruled across the soft logic of the natural world.

Flying and flying over the endless cloud cover - I feel like I have entered a fictional world - a world magically caught in its own rules. Can I stay here forever? On the threshold of eternal desire and hope, never to be disappointed? Put it aside. No future in entertaining hopeless dreams. The little plane powers on with an even hum of engines. My mind plays back over conversations and events.

I see the end of the cloud cover in the distance . A new land approaches - ranges of low, forested mountains layered in paler and paler shades of misty blue till the horizon merges with the pale edge of the sky. I’m flying over a land of dreams - a dreamscape of possibilities.

Endless wrinkles of low mountains pass below. Silver, singing river curls and twists between the folds of hillls. Puffs of white cloud float past my window. Another, broader river reflects the sunlight from its bends and turns - the Clarence. We fly over the river flats, lower and lower. I see shadows on the gound and white bee keeper boxes. Fine clouds feather the horizon.

Sweet soul of life, nourish me.

We bump and make a banking turn over pasture land to arrive at the end of the airstrip. Our shadow flees beneath. The wind sock tells me we are landing into the wind.