Taxi twitters

• 10:48 Woke up to Qantas calling to say they hadn't forgotten me. Later today they'll let me know the four destinations I can choose from. #
• 10:50 Thanks to @wombles for this one, a salute to airline food that had tears running down my cheeks: tinyurl.com/azxndo #
• 11:22 Qantas rang! I have a choice of Dunk Island, Brampton Island, or Ayers Rock (adventure or relax). #
• 12:53 Kerri and I independently picked the Ayers Rock Sails in the Desert Relaxation prize. www.ayersrockresort.com.au/sails/ #
• 17:34 Mmmm! Mealbrake at the CIA servo. Subway chicken schnitzel footlong. Hold the jalopenos! #
• 18:16 Chewing gum - Wrigley Extra Tropical - to cleanse the cab. My stock of Stride now sadly vanished. #
• 19:24 @JimHawkinsBBC Chewing gum. Does the flavour last? How to dispose? Does it gum up pigeons' innards? Is this a good thing? #
• 00:13 @JimHawkinsBBC Named by my mum after Peter Marshall, the charismatic Scottish preacher who became chaplain of the US Senate. #
• 00:37 @emccullough Unlikely. PM died in 1949. tinyurl.com/bghypu #
• 01:21 @emccullough Christy and Julie and a bunch of religious books. #
• 01:55 @tzurriz Ooh, go, go, go! The thought of everyone listening quiet, while growly bear tummy sits in the back row with M, it makes me happy! #
• 02:03 Midnight dessert was a vanilla cola and a Snickers bar. Pete, just doing it for the food #
• 02:10 @tzurriz Sir! I have had my fill of winter. When is the President going to sort out a bit of global warming?
  Yours frostily,
  Daddy Cool #
• 02:59 @tzurriz I can always use a giggle. What's his name? #

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The real reason

Far Extender,
originally uploaded by skyring.

OK. The secret’s out. The real reason I drive a cab is because I like aeroplanes. Looking at them, flying in them, reading about them.

And, being a cabbie means that not only do I get to hang out at Canberra airport where I can watch planes landing, taking off and cruising around looking for a parking slot, I can earn enough money to fly in them every now and then.

Canberra International Airport (otherwise known as CIA) is perhaps a little too grandly named for its primary function, which is being one end of seven domestic air routes, mostly to the other capital cities. There used to be an international service to Fiji some years ago, which operated during the winter months, but that got cancelled due to poor attendance. Every now and then the airport management makes optimistic noises about flights to Singapore or New Zealand or Hobart, but the truth is that with Sydney airport a couple of hours up the road, offering regular services to just about everywhere in the world, Canberra can’t compete.

However, every now and then we get some international flights. If Sydney airport is closed in by weather, we’ll get an occasional diversion, such as the time the London flight came in late at night and sat around on the tarmac for six hours before the exhausted passengers were finally released. Or there will be visiting heads of state in colorful official jets.



It’s always worth while looking over at the RAAF VIP Squadron base on the other side of the main runway. Yesterday, I spotted an aging DC-9 in United States Navy livery, and while I was snapping telephoto photographs through the heat haze, there was a tremendous noise and a USAF KC-10 tanker aircraft landed. Presumably they will fly back home together, because there is no way a DC-9 could make it back over the Pacific alone.

The other aircraft in the background of the photograph above is one of Australia’s VIP transports, a Boeing Business Jet used to fly the Prime Minister and his media staff around. I suspect that we’ve used the same aircraft livery consultant, or maybe we bought some surplus aeroplane paint from the Americans.