On 30 March 1944, a long queue formed outside the Victorian Tourist Bureau in Melbourne. The people in it were prospective holidaymakers waiting to make Easter bookings. A Herald Newspaper photograph, now held by the Australian War Memorial, records wartime urban life through a surprisingly ordinary transaction rather than rationing or military service. The catalogue does not identify their destinations, how many secured bookings or how long they waited. It does establish the date, place, purpose and the presence of a long line. Planning leisure still required scarce information and bookings to be processed at a public office. Preserved in a national war collection, the queue is a reminder that civilian life during conflict included attempts to reserve time away—and that even recreation began by taking a place outside a bureau.