Thursday 27th November 2026 was Johanna and Hans’s last day in Australia. We were in Sydney and I’d booked a seaplane with https://sydneybyseaplane.com.au starting at Rose Bay. It’d be just one more of Hans’ bucket list items ticked off. It was a short drive from our hotel in Double Bay to the Rose Bay marina. We were picked up at the agreed time by Ricardo, a man in a boat, who’d lived all his life at Rose Bay, and took us out into the bay and we waited for the plane to arrive.

Seaplane Steve was the pilot with over 27,000 flying hours in seaplanes and he would take us through the heads and up the coast to Barrenjoey Head at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, returning via Manly and Mossman.

We finished with a couple of orbits over the opera house. It was only 30 minutes but it was pretty impressive way to see Sydney Harbour and the northern beaches. I’d flown it before in the Cirrus twice but you see so much more when you don’t have to concentrate on flying the plane.