Planes might not be flying for now, but I've decided when I finish with this job as photographer in the newsroom (or more likely, when they've finished with me), I'll become a travel agent and tour guide.
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This is Melton aerodrome in 1991 and is a good starting point for a trip.
The former ANA Ansett Douglas flew a cargo run between Melbourne and Launceston in the early 70s and apparently made an appearance in the futuristic 1951 movie No Highway In The Sky.
Once here in Tasmania, the plan will be to offer bus tours and I like the look of this one at Derwent Bridge.
There's tennis at Gunns Plains, or for the thrill seeker, the super slide at Bagdad.
Some travellers may want a campervan, like these beauties at New Norfolk.
Or something a little larger at Gunns Plains.
And maybe we'll even throw in some motel accommodation, like this.
Obviously, this is not Tasmania, and not even Australia.
This is Bagdad, California, taken on Michelle's and my honeymoon when we detoured our Mustang onto old route 66, while on our way from LA to the Grand Canyon.
I thought it was a great drive, after all, 500 miles isn't that far, not until you translate into kilometres, as Michelle pointed out.
I was in my element, looking through old ruins and things out in the middle of nowhere.
Michelle couldn't have been less interested, being from Sydney and much more at home in the big smoke, she's a city girl, she says. Whereas I'm a country member, and then makes sure I remember.
Just a year or two back, we planned a holiday to Sydney.
One of the unfortunate differences between myself and my beloved, one of about three million, is that for me a holiday is about the journey, and the destination is simply a turnaround point, whereas for Michelle, it's being there, not getting there.
She didn't want to spend four days of her week off driving up and down the Hume Highway, and I didn't want to waste a good road trip in an aeroplane.
It helped that I had three weeks off compared to Michelle's one, and it was settled. I'd drive up, meet there for our week off together, then drive back.
And so I jumped onto the Spirit for the most relaxing crossing of Bass Lake, as it was that day, the perfect start to three weeks off and a short road trip.
I'd been on the road a few hours on a roasting summer day when something unusual happened.
I did nothing wrong, the temperature was just right, the podcast interesting, the silence golden, I didn't stop too much or too little and didn't drink to much coffee or eat too many biscuits.
It was like heaven.
I found many things to stop off and look at, old roads once the main highway that we used to fly along, old relics and roadside rubbish I thought were interesting to photograph.
Meanwhile, former airline employee Michelle was a lot closer to a heaven of her own, enjoying a glass or two at 35,000 feet with an old work colleague she met on the flight to Sydney.
At Gundagai a dust storm combined with a thunderstorm to rain mud, I pulled up at Gunning to cook a toasted sandwich on the gas stove, and by nightfall a drizzle set in and it was a long relaxing cruise in the dark with my favourite podcast.
And so we had a great time in Sydney, cruising Sydney harbour, doing some of those city slicker things, and before we knew it our holiday had gone, Michelle was back at the airport and it was time for the short drive back to Melbourne with more than a week to do it in.
It was a longer drive back, stopping at almost every little town, like Canberra, and some of the nicer ones too, like Bargo, Bowning, Bookham and Bowna.
This is a road trip that I could do over and again.