Almost every day on social media I see travelling friends post phenomenal still and moving imagery from the skies.
They’re pictures and footage we all have the ability to capture these days, with drones so easily accessible to us all.
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But are there more sharks ‘stalking’ swimmers at beaches than ever before, or do we just see them all now someone’s usually got a drone in flight at swimming hotspots?
Filmmakers who used to spend big bucks on choppers and cameras on wires must have loved the innovation of drones.
And when our region flooded last year, drones had to have been a quicker and cheaper option to send into the skies for photographic updates than planes.
Of course, I don’t really know much about whether those things are how I imagine them, not being a drone pilot myself, but what I do know is that there are still restricted places where flying drones is illegal.
Often at some of the most remarkable tourist places, it’s forbidden.
So what do you do to get a bird’s eye view?
You could jump on a joy flight.
And that way you also get to see those views with your own eyes from the unique vantage point, rather than just through a camera viewfinder.
I took the kids to Port Campbell the summer before last, which is the gateway to one of Australia’s natural wonders, the Twelve Apostles (of which there are only actually eight left), on the Great Ocean Road.
The rugged coastline in the area is magnificent — sweeping views, artful rock formations and cliff faces, unparalleled sunrise and sunset views.
While you already feel high standing on the cliffs along a section of the Great Ocean Walk or on the viewing platforms looking down to the ocean, you always get that thirst to be a little higher, to look at it all from above.
Well, I do. But then again, I’m a girl who sits on the roof of my house to watch the sun rise and set often if the sky’s throwing pretty light.
And, I don’t know about you, but I usually go over budget on holidays.
When I’m in holiday mode, I get this reckless outlook interwoven with that fear of missing out.
I always think, “Ah, bugger it, when’s the next time we’ll be back here and get another chance to do this? Sign us up!”
I’m not one of those people with a desire for a fixed address holiday house to visit every summer, or someone with one singular hobby that takes me to the same place or similar places every time I head away.
I want to go somewhere different, try something new, experience as much as I can each time I use one of the four weeks of annual leave I get each year.
Even if that means I have to spend a couple of the 48 remaining working weeks restocking the holiday fund after the fact.
So, we hadn’t planned on taking a $600 chopper flight when we were on what was already a spontaneous trip, finding out last-minute I could take a week’s leave during school holidays.
But that wild carelessness came over me and I thought it would be an exhilarating experience to give the kids (and myself, as I don’t recall ever riding in a helicopter before either).
And it sure was, despite my youngest child questioning why I always “make us do crazy stuff”.
Once he was back on terra firma, he was all smiles — partly because he didn’t fall out like he’d been concerned he would, but mostly because it was a big buzz in a big motorised buzzard.
Fast-forward to now and he’s become obsessed with planes and aircraft.
He will tell you what the maximum speed of each specific model of aircraft goes, the flight paths of international airlines and where they do and don’t fly to. He will track flights and question why there is an abnormally large number of people tracking a particular flight (is there a famous person on board?).
I inquired last week with a local company about taking us on a joy flight over Shepparton to see our own home from above (not one of Australia’s natural wonders, but definitely special to us).
Sadly they are only able to accommodate three passengers maximum, and ours is a family of four.
I think my little guy might spend most of the time watching the instruments and controls, keeping check on what the pilot is doing rather than taking in the view out the window anyway.
(Perhaps a flight simulator putting him in control might be a better idea.)
But if you didn’t know before, you know now that if you have a party of three or less keen on getting a bird’s eye view of our city from the sky, you can!
At a third of the cost and triple the time of a chopper flight over the Twelve Apostles, it’s a really affordable, unique and quite exciting experience you can access right here in Shepp.
Nothing plain about it.
Except the plane, of course.
Senior journalist