This early morning photo was taken by Maclean resident Geoff Thame from his vantage point on a QANTAS Brisbane – Melbourne flight pre COVID.

The shot shows the entire Lower Clarence region and includes the towns of Lawrence, Maclean, Yamba, Iluka, Woombah etc., lakes, islands, river and coast all in one photo. It virtually covers the whole the old Maclean Shire Council area.

Geoff is a private pilot (out of Palmers Island) but he does not fly higher than 10,000 feet.

“After that (10,000 feet) you don’t refer to altitude in feet but in Flight Levels. I think the height of the QANTAS plane at this point is likely to be FL250, ie. 25,000 feet. You can see a bit of cirrus cloud above and that happens anywhere between 16,000 feet and 36,000 feet so really it is a bit of a guess”. Geoff said being 200k from Brisbane the aircraft had probably already reached cruise level, so 25,000 feet is a reasonable guess.