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Taking off from Canberra Airport on a sunny Friday afternoon - order and simplicity at this air terminal.
Approaching Botany Bay (above) and then the Dash makes a curved route to make a landing at Sydney runways from the ocean side (below). The southern Sydney shire of Sutherland is laid out below , together with the entrance to the King Georges River, a main artery of Australia's largest metropolitan region. Sydney Airport, Kingsford-Smith with the international, domestic and airline cargo terminals, is sited rather close to the city centre and its iconic Harbour Bridge. In 2010, this airport handled 36 million passengers. It has strict aircraft curfew restrictions in place since 1995, and also has a cap of 80 aircraft landing at any one time, perhaps causing the infamous delays on Friday evenings with aircraft having to go through a waiting pattern over the Blue Mountains or the Canberra region before they are authorised to land.
Above and below, the Dash flies over the Royal National Park, a bush reserve that separates southern Sydney from Wollongong and the start of the NSW South Coast. The RNP was the first Government declared reserve in Australia, modelled on and inspired by the preservation of the Yellowstone National Park by the US Congress.
It is always impressive to see Sydney, whether from a passenger ship or from an aircraft, so it is good to have a window seat. Something about the ocean and the coastal landscape combine to have this exhilarating effect on passengers as the craft swoops in close to land, whether by night or in the daytime. The Dash provided a more personal and close up perspective of this experience.
