‘Reflecting on this photo, I feel emotional': Karen Weideman's best phone picture
The restored heritage village of Old Petrie Town lies about a 90-minute drive from the farm in Queensland, Australia, where Karen Weideman lives. She and her husband, Michael, were visiting back in 2022 when she took this photo on her iPhone 11. 'The town is spread across 48 acres of parkland, and some of the buildings date back to the 1800s. It has markets, museums and galleries; we love to just wander around, taking in the sights,' she says. 'You're also spoiled for choice when it comes to food; we had some incredible chicken satay for lunch. Then it started raining so we began heading home, but we passed these beautiful old buses on the way. Number 77 was a Brisbane city council school bus from the 60s.'
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Always on the lookout for new things to photograph, she asked Michael to step inside and pose for her. 'He's for ever patient, and my biggest supporter; he has complete faith in whatever I'm trying to achieve,' she says. She later made some minimal enhancements using the Snapseed app.
While Weideman set out to create a melancholy mood but leave the story open to the viewer's interpretation, her own feelings towards what she captured that day have changed with time. 'Reflecting on this photo, I feel emotional, as my husband now battles stage 4 metastatic melanoma,' she says. 'It feels as if he's trapped behind the glass, reaching out to me, and I can't stop him as the bus pulls off and his journey begins.'
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The Guardian
8 hours ago
- The Guardian
Sydney's second airport is nearly built. But will the airlines and people come?
It has been talked about for decades, and a year and a half out from its opening, Western Sydney International is looking more and more like an airport. This week, press gathered to mark the completion of its runway. Built 1 metre deep with a range of materials including a base layer of crushed sandstone salvaged from road tunnelling projects in Sydney; a section of 140,000 tonnes of asphalt above it; and 73,000 cubic metres of concrete paving, the 3.7km runway is strong enough to accommodate A380 and Boeing 747-8 jumbos. Meanwhile, its freshly built terminal looks futuristic, a building with rows of aerobridges that extend on to the tarmac, ready for the planes that will one day fly millions of passengers. Driving up to the building, there are already signs to the arrivals and departures area. However, there's plenty still to be done. While ride-share pickup points have been established, getting an Uber to the terminal is impossible, in large part because roads haven't been named yet. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The existing roads to the airport via the town of Luddenham feel semi-rural, passing homesteads, paddocks and plenty of cows, before the environment quickly shifts to hi-vis and fresh asphalt of roads not yet recognised on Google Maps. But for now, it's just construction workers who have learned the daily commute travelling to the airport. Perfecting the experience of driving to the airport 44km west of Sydney's eastern CBD will be crucial – the airport is scheduled to open in December 2026, before the dedicated Metro rail link, which has been delayed, potentially until up to a year later. It's one of many of the logistical hurdles the government-owned airport faces on its home stretch, before bringing 24-hour commercial aviation to Sydney and shaking up a core dynamic that has hamstrung Australian aviation. Standing on the freshly-laid runway, the airport CEO Simon Hickey this week said most of the construction of the airport itself had now been completed. Western Sydney International was on budget and on track to open by the end of 2026, he said. Most of the task ahead lies in bolstering roads on the so-called 'land side' – as opposed to the airfield – but most of the works will be filling out the rest of the airport precinct, which includes a business park, cargo area and the broader Bradfield city being planned by government authorities. One thing that does not need to be built is an air traffic control tower. The airport will be Australia's first operated as a 'digital aerodrome' – thanks to more than 20 high resolution cameras broadcasting the airport and immediate airspace in real time to a centralised control room off-site – as part of plans by Airservices Australia, the government body responsible for managing airspace. Some things, however, cannot be done remotely. Airservices – which is also tasked with providing specialist aviation firefighting services to all major airports – will soon build its fire station there. While major construction works are nearing completion, Hickey said efforts were shifting to a testing regime, which will include welcoming progressively larger aircraft, as well as drills mimicking everyday airport scenarios. These drills will canvass mundane occurrences, such as staff responding to deliberately staged incidents such as dropped suitcases or injuries, with hired-staff posing as travellers. The drills will also include crisis simulations, to stress test how the airport's infrastructure and staff respond to incidents such as security threats or cyber-attacks. The other crucial element will be securing airlines to fly to the airport. So far, Qantas, its budget carrier Jetstar, and Singapore Airlines have signed up. Hickey said the airline had been in discussion with more than 30 airlines. While more airlines are expected to announce services to WSI soon, Hickey this week was coy as to whether a lack of rail connection at the initial opening, and distance from central Sydney, was proving a sticking point in attempts to woo more global carriers. 'We've got great connectivity from day one,' Hickey said, talking up the M12 motorway which allows travel to Sydney's eastern CBD 'without going through one set of traffic lights'. '[There are] 2.5 million people in Western Sydney. It's one of the most vibrant communities in Australia. It's one of the fastest growing communities in Australia … So actually, airlines recognise that this is a great place to be with a great catchment,' Hickey said. In the early months of operating, operations are expected to be small, before gradually ramping up. Before the rail connection opens, many in the industry expect the airport to be mostly popular with western Sydney locals, especially those looking to avoid long trips and toll spends getting to the existing Kingsford Smith airport in Mascot. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The concept of a second major airport serving a large Australian city is relatively foreign, apart from south-east Queensland's array of airports serving Brisbane, the Gold Coast and north-east New South Wales. The closest model is Victoria's Avalon, for which tickets are sold as a Melbourne destination but which is in reality much closer to the city of Geelong. While Avalon is Melbourne's second busiest passenger airport, it resembles more of a regional operation, with roughly a dozen Jetstar services, mostly to Sydney, each day. On a recent trip to the airport, Guardian Australia observed multiple passengers puzzled by its small size, wondering whether they had in fact landed in Melbourne. Another in the arrivals hall frantically asked a Jetstar employee why they couldn't find their family – who had, it transpired, instead turned up to the larger Tullamarine airport about 50km away. 'It happens all the time,' the Jetstar worker later told Guardian Australia. Avalon's relative failure to grow into a major second airport has much to do with its origins, initially as a military airfield, then training base, and logistics hub run by Linfox. It began hosting passenger services with Jetstar in 2004, but repeated attempts to lure international airlines have not lasted. Conversely, western Sydney airport is being master planned as a primarily passenger airport with an accompanying CBD to serve an area already looking for alternatives to the long commute to the eastern part of the city. Additionally, the 24-hour operations at WSI are set to trigger a dramatic shake-up of Australian aviation. Currently, Sydney's existing Kingsford Smith airport is hamstrung by strict movement limits of 80 take offs and landings – known as slots – in any one hour, plus an 11pm-6am curfew, to curb noise pollution for residents. The scarcity of slots in Sydney, particularly in peak travel times, has been highlighted as a key barrier to new entrant airlines establishing a foothold to compete with Qantas group and Virgin. While its flight paths will be slightly tweaked at night, WSI will operate at all hours, with careful planning to ensure comparatively less noise for residents compared with the city's eastern airport. Many in the industry are hopeful that beyond allowing for cheaper and more convenient flights for those willing to travel during the night, less constrained slots could allow new airlines to form a base in Sydney and meaningfully compete with established carriers. 'Late-night departure capacity, for instance, could allow Singapore Airlines business travellers to finish a full day's work in Sydney, take an overnight flight and arrive in Singapore before their first morning meeting the very next day,' Hickey has said. Competition among airports over the prices they charge for access and retail rents could also drive prices lower for business which could flow on to customers, a dynamic seen in European countries where competition from secondary airports allow for more carriers and cheaper average air fares. WSI will initially operate with just one runway, capable of handling up to 10 million passengers a year, but with growth plans to allow for a second runway to be built. Tens of thousands of jobs will be directly or indirectly supported by the airport and precinct. There are plans for WSI to eventually become Sydney's biggest international airport, to handle more than 80 million annual passengers, similar to the load handled by London's Heathrow. However, in the short term, Sydney's Kingsford Smith is expected to remain dominant, with demand at Western Sydney to take time to form. This has been seen in Qantas's planning, with the airline confirming to Australian Aviation that when the airport opens it will operate services with QantasLink, its regional brand which has smaller aircraft. For now, Catherine King, the transport minister, is optimistic the airport will grow, not cannibalise, Sydney's air travel market, and help make western Sydney a destination instead of an appendage. 'Each [airport] will operate in their own markets. I'm sure they'll work competitively with and against each other as well,' King said.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
Mitchell Starc makes emotional career call after Aussie cricketer's tough decision with wife
Aussie pace bowler Mitchell Starc has made the difficult decision not to return to India for the resumption of the IPL after recently escaping the region with his wife Alyssa Healy. The couple endured a heart-stopping evacuation from India in May due to escalating tensions with Pakistan. Starc has chosen not to return to the world's most popular cricket tournament, revealing that he's content with the fact he may not be asked to play in India again. 'I'm comfortable with my decision and how I felt about the whole situation and how it was handled,' Starc told The Age. 'That's why I made my decision post-that, and my focus changed to red-ball cricket for about a week prior to coming over here (to Lord's for the World Test Championship final). 'Time will tell with repercussions or how it looks with guys that didn't return. But I've had my questions and concerns leading into that game, and obviously we saw what happened, which played a part in my decision.' 'There was a little bit of that to my decision around the Champions Trophy [in Pakistan]. And then once the tournament was delayed you start to think about guys' preparation for the Test match. 'Things were handled differently for different players and different teams, the guys up in Dharamsala, the Punjab guys were part of that, and while both teams had similar experiences up there, all those guys returned for Punjab, and Jake [Fraser-McGurk] and I chose not to. 'So it was a very individual decision, and I'm happy to live with whatever comes of that.' Healy opened up on the worrying escape from India while watching her husband play in Dharamsala, in India's far north. 'It was a surreal experience,' she told the Willow Talk podcast. 'All of a sudden a couple of the light towers went out and we were just sitting there up the top waiting … we're a large group of family and extra support staff and the next minute the guy who wrangles the group of us and gets us on the bus came up and his face was white. 'He was like, "We need to go right now." Then (another) guy came out and his face was white and he grabbed one of the children and said, "We need to leave right now." 'We were like, "what's going on?" We weren't told anything. We had no idea. 'Next minute we are down being shuffled into this room which was like a holding pen. All the boys were in there. 'Faf (South African cricketer Faf du Plessis) didn't even have shoes on. We were all just waiting there looking stressed. 'I said to Mitch, "what's going on?" He said the town 60km away had just been smacked by some of the missiles so there was a complete blackout in the area. 'That's why the lights were off because the Dharamsala stadium was like a beacon at that point in time. 'All of a sudden we're crammed into vans and off we go back to the hotel. There was madness.' It was decided that the best move was to evacuate the teams the following day, but Healy said that the eleven and a half hour journey back to Dehli was also disturbing. 'We ended up going south west towards the border which was a little bit terrifying,' Healy said. 'Mitch and I have played too much Call of Duty and we're noticing all the SAM sites that were just sitting there ready to go. They're radar operated systems that shoot missiles at aircraft.
Times
a day ago
- Times
Yes… I crashed my son's gap year. Here's what happened
I never had the faintest intention of 'crashing' my son's gap year; I just planned an extraordinary holiday for us both within it. And when I shared this idea with my 18-year-old son, Rider, he was excited. I know my son, and we are entirely capable of enjoying extended periods of time together while respecting each other's boundaries. If you like the sound of a gap year holiday, then here are my tips: 1. Make sure they know what you're planning. 2. Don't arrive until they've been away for several months and have spread their wings. When they are at the point where they most appreciate the Bank of Mum and Dad, they will be genuinely enthusiastic about seeing you. 3. Plan some tantalising adventures they haven't yet managed. Note: spa breaks at luxe retreats may be your idea of heaven, but for them it's The White Lotus. 4. When catching sight of your beloved offspring for the first time in months, try not to burst into tears in public. 5. If, like me, you manage three of the above, you're winning. I arrived in Brisbane on Good Friday, after the least stressful long-haul flight of my life — just 24 hours before Rider's flight arrived from Melbourne. At my Airbnb I slept, rehydrated like an athlete and got sufficiently abreast of any jetlag to get my Adulting Gap Year itinerary so watertight that the Royal Navy could deploy it as a submarine. We would be so busy that I would need another week to recover. (Luckily, I'd factored that in.) Travelling light has never been part of my skill set. Now, however, I recognised that three pairs of trainers, Ugg slippers plus not one but two pairs of niche footwear for plantar fasciitis was probably pushing the packing boundaries too far (and don't get me started on the vitamin supplements). Nonetheless, by the time my son and I were reunited in domestic arrivals, my pre-adventure to-do checklist had been checked. Within the hour (thanks to Rider) I had bought an e-sim to avoid mobile roaming charges: we recommend the Holafly app. • Kathryn Flett: Should I crash my son's gap year? By 7pm we had caught an Uber into Brisbane's central business district, where four fifths of my Aussie family had convened for Easter in a glamorous high-rise Airbnb overlooking the twinkling city. However, I barely registered the views; I had two nephews I had never even met to distract me. What a joy. During our heady week getting to know Queensland, Rider and I had precisely one argument, right at the beginning of the next day: Adventure Day 1. At the SeaLink terminal in the Brisbane suburb of Cleveland for the ferry to Stradbroke Island, I realised I didn't have the tickets — and the ticket office didn't seem to be open. Neither my son nor I are at our best in the early morning. As I made it clear to everyone within earshot that I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't hear Rider mutter 'zip-it, Karen', though he may have. Instead, while I was trying to explain to the staff that the tickets had already been paid for — I just didn't have them on me, Rider cut to the chase and simply bought two more, on the boat. Which reminds me, I still owe him for those. • Best hotels in Brisbane Forty minutes later, at North Stradbroke, we set off on a four-hour Aboriginal tour of the island that the local First Australian Quandamooka people call Minjerribah, with Elisha Kissick from Yura Tours. Engaging with the island's beauty ensured that we healed our minor rift. From the serene bush-fringed inland lakes to the seafood beach picnic of Moreton Bay bugs, crab and stir-fried ugaries — tiny saltwater clams we had prised out of the sand, ('Now you're hunter-gatherers,' we were told), via a bouncy 4×4 trip along pristine beaches, Elisha imparted the magic of Brisbane's nearest faraway place. 'First Nations people are born storytellers,' she said. 'It's what we've been doing for thousands of years.' 'Is that a koala?' Rider pointed at a furry blob in a gum tree. 'Wow! Well spotted!' Elisha said. Our Day 1 Aussie wildlife bingo scorecard eventually featured: two koalas, three wallabies, one semi-submerged turtle (possibly), numerous herons, cormorants, curlews and … then I started singing, 'Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree/ Merry, merry king of the bush is he/ Laugh Kookaburra, laugh Kookaburra/ Gay your life must be.' Rider was well within his rights to deploy his AirPods. However, my mum used to sing it to me — albeit not when I was 18. After a pitstop at the stylish island shop run by Delvene Cockatoo-Collins, whose gorgeous textiles, ceramics and jewellery sell internationally (if only my bags weren't already full of pointless pairs of shoes) we were back on the mainland, on speaking terms, heading for plunge pools and saunas at the Bathhouse Albion. We've previously thalassotherapied together in Cornwall and been massaged side-by-side in Marrakesh. However, this was the first time either of us had had an entire pukka spa all to ourselves. The infrared sauna was a game-changer; I lingered for much longer than I do in the traditional kind. • Read our full guide to Australia By the time we were ordering beers and burgers at (big, bold and very buzzing) Felons Brewery in Howard Smith Wharves, right beneath Brisbane Bridge, we were bonded again; a fully functioning mum and son duo up for more adventures. 'This is the life, eh?' I was happy to embrace cliché as we toasted the end of Day 1, which had been a long one. 'I wonder what tomorrow brings?' 'It's been amazing already,' ider said, 'but I'm fine without eating more ugaries.' I agreed; perhaps we weren't hunter-gatherers after all. Either way, we were up for whatever Queensland wanted to throw at us, together. So we drank to that. But not too much — there would be another early start tomorrow. Kathryn Flett was a guest of Tourism and Events Queensland ( and Qatar Airways, which has return flights London-Brisbane via Doha from £1,149pp (
