We rashly decided on this occasion to take the non-stop flight to Perth. Slightly alarmingly, when you look at the timings, it appears to take over 24 hours and the thought of a day in the same seat didn’t really appeal. However, once you take account of the time difference, it comes down to sixteen and a half hours – not quite so bad. Even so, wedged in a seat for that time takes its toll and we arrived a bit frazzled. Walking out into 34 degrees of heat tends to make you feel even more frazzled but it was a nice contrast to the UK.
Everyone was immediately friendly – from a lovely flight attendant on the flight to the people we were queuing beside on the way to immigration. (N.B. Heathrow – just for info, it turns out if you employ enough people you can get through an immigration queue in five minutes!). One of them gave us the easiest route by public transport and a bus to Redcliffe, train to Elizabeth Quay and a ferry across to South Perth dropped us almost outside the hotel we had booked.
To try and stay awake we then wandered around town and found the most important thing – a gelato shop. This was closely followed by finding a wonderful supermarket – The Good Grocer which is open 24 hours a day. Recommended for jet lag. The Good Grocer is a bit like Waitrose on steroids – a great choice of stuff.
We pretty much failed with the staying awake and ended up going to bed at 8pm, but it was a nice start to the trip.
