We arrived in Perth, Australia, late last night after a long, but easy flight from Hong Kong. Even in economy class Cathay Pacific Airlines goes the extra bit, and we received great service, had an amazing choice of great movies, were served some good food and snacks, and had decent leg room. Thankfully getting out of Hong Kong was a snap as was entering Australia. We missed getting our passports stamped in both places – immigration is done electronically and everything is merely scanned coming and going. We took a taxi from the airport to our Airbnb (actually a two-story condo), figured out how to let ourselves in, and eventually got to bed. The condo is clean and comfortable, and we have room to spread out, which it looks like we’re going to need.
We woke up this morning feeling flat-out exhausted. The past two weeks have been nothing but go, go, go for us, compounded by long and sometimes difficult travel days and the need to overcome some deep jet lag. Although we don’t really feel like doing much of anything today, we do have to get ourselves to a grocery store – we currently have nothing with us to eat but the dry muesli we bought in Hong Kong. Thankfully, Brett was still able to make coffee as we always carry along the little pour-through filter we bought over 25 years ago in Japan and a bag off coffee. After two weeks of delicious but fattening restaurant food we’re looking forward to fixing our own meals once again.
The apartment has a washer AND a dryer, so doing laundry is also part of our plan for today. It’s quite warm here in Perth – it’s supposed to get up to 80°F today – and not only are we swapping out our cold-weather clothes for the summer things that we’ll need for the next 25 days, but we also have to empty out the new rolling carry-on (and find places for all that stuff) because that’s where the clothes for our train journey have to go – the big suitcases will go into a separate luggage car. I have a feeling this re-pack is going to take a few days.
For now though we’re planning to take a couple of days to rest up and then will get out and explore a bit of Perth. Brett has an old navy buddy that lives here and he and his wife have offered to show us around, but we also need to figure out how to get out on our own in this fairly spread-out city. I chose this Airbnb for its amenities but also because it’s just a 20 minute walk to the train station where we’ll board the Indian-Pacific next Sunday for our ride across Australia. Otherwise it appears we’re not close to much but we’ll get it figured out – we always do!
The Occasional Nomads 
Welcome to Australia at least you are almost in my time zone. Looking foward to your trip on the Indian Pacific and your impressions of Sydney 😀
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We’re happy to be here! Walked to the supermarket today – small, but it had a selection that would put many American grocery stores to shame. Very friendly people, too. Our neighborhood is lovely too.
Anyway, our first impressions are good. Sunday and the train ride will be here before we know it. I just hope we can get the suitcase shuffle figured out – right now it seems a bit overwhelming.
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sometimes you can go into the post office to get your passports stamped if you really want it…depends on the country I’d assume. We’ve done that on some of the cruises that didn’t stamp at the ports.
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We honestly didn’t think about it until we entered Australia and didn’t get a stamp, and then realized we never got one (in or out) in Hong Kong either. Believe it or not, before we traveled we worried whether we had enough pages in our passports for all the stamps, but instead we’ll finish with a few empty pages.
Oh well, we’ve got the pictures to prove we were there!
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Yikes…sounds like a long journey. I’m really interested in your ‘down under’ trip. My DH has a cousin living in New Zealand who invited us to visit. The length of the flights gives me pause, but you seem to manage it well, so maybe. 🙂 Glad you have some time to rest up.
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The flight over to India was our longest yet, but in retrospect wasn’t too bad – the flight from Montevideo to Madrid still ranks as the worst, but we survived. BTW, we often thought about visiting New Zealand and/or Australia when we lived in Hawaii because the flight would be shorter, but obviously that didn’t happen. If there’s a secret to getting through the long travel days for me it’s getting some sleep on the plane, which I finally can do, thanks to my Trtl travel pillow and one tablet of Bonine airsickness medicine. Travel days are still killer though, having to wrangle our heavy bags, etc. It’s the only time Brett and I get snappy with each other.
We’re resting again today, but will be out and about tomorrow with bouts of repacking in between. I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to being in Japan where we can unpack and live a somewhat normal life for three months (plus being able to be so close to my son and family).
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