Dateline Down Under - February 2, 2008

Dateline Down Under – Arrival in Perth
February 2, 2008

Up and At’em at O’dark Hundred this morning. We’re headed for our ultimate long-term destination on the West Coast of Australia – Perth. As most of you know, we have traded our home with a couple from Perth for the month of February. We should be arriving at their home just about the same time they arrive in Pollock Pines, but what a difference. We are flying into summer and 80-90 degree weather, snorkeling, swimming and laying around on the beach. They are headed into snow, ice, cold, and skiing, snowshoeing and all that fun stuff! We get two summers and they get two winters!

The Internet has been down at our hotel, so we cannot check-in on line. We call Qantas Airlines only to find that if you cannot check in on line, you just wait and do it in person. No phone check-in allowed. We are concerned about getting reasonable seats, but in the end it all works out.

The shuttle picked us up pretty close to on-time and we are motored out to the Melbourne airport. Just as a note for any one planning to do this sort of trip down the road, stopping on the East Coast of Australia for a few days was the best choice we could have ever made. The thought of 31 hours to get to Melbourne, and then another 4 hours on another plane to the West coast would have killed us.

We run into our first differences in culture at the airport. First, Qantas has a rule that NO carry on luggage can exceed 7 Kg (about 16 pounds), period. We weigh our stuff. Steve’s camera gear squeaks in at 6.9 kilos. Carol’s laptop busts the scale. We are not about to trust our notebook computer to the baggage apes, so Carol asks for assistance at the customer service desk. Solution: We take the notebook out of the carry bag, dropping the bag’s weight to acceptable limits. We carry the notebook onto the airplane in a bag supplied by Qantas, and then place it back in the backpack once we get aboard…. Go figure.

Security is a LOT easier and less of a hassle. The lines are about the same, but you do not have to take off your shoes, jackets or any of that stuff. There are also a LOT of little nosy Beagles, both getting on the airplane, and when you arrive at the other end, and they smell EVERYTHING.

Australian airlines (at least Qantas) have not cut back on hospitality like in the U.S. We actually got a nice lunch served to us in the cattle car section of the plane, and they even threw in a chocolate ice cream bar before we landed. However, if you think U.S. airline seats are small, these are for midgets! Steve had to ask the man in front of him to PLEASE not lean his seat back into the reclining position, as Steve would have been crushed between the seats. Time to lose a little weight and/or height there big guy….

We flew over the Southern Ocean along the southern coast of Australia, and there are simply miles and miles of pure white beaches and clear light green to deep blue seas along the coast. The middle of the country moving inland looks like the desert does in California. We are going trekking in the outback next month before we return home, and it will be an interesting adventure. It looks forbidding and hostile out there. There are almost no cities or towns to speak of and you just fly over this vast land mass with nothing at all out there.

About 40 minutes out of Perth we get pounded pretty well by thunder bumpers. There were a lot of little tykes on the plane, and they had pretty much been running the aisles throughout the trip, and all of the sudden it got pretty quiet. Our approach and landing was pretty hot due to the weather and turbulence, and we got a pretty good bounce for a Boeing 767 when we landed. Once we slowed down the pilot got an ovation for getting us on the ground in one piece.

Walking off the plane reminded us sort of Hawaii without the complete tropical floral smells. It is quite warm and somewhat humid in Perth (they tell us the Northeast Coast where we are headed in March will be a LOT more humid than it is here – oh Boy oh Boy – can’t wait for that!) and there is that soft tropical smell. Trevor and Sheena Lannin (our exchange partners) have arranged to have us picked up and ferried to their house by a friend (Thank You Deb Clew!), which saved us the hassle of finding where to go and how to get there on our own, and which we GREATLY appreciated.

The Lannin’s have a beautiful home. It is brand new and looks very tropical in design (photos later when we have time to catch up here). There is so much room here we sort of feel lost with just the two of us. Steve is thrilled that they have an HD home theater system similar to ours (but a newer generation with better picture quality and clarity, so now he thinks he needs a new model – I don’t think so!). However, as most of you know, we don’t do a whole lot of T.V., and plan to hit the road Monday to begin meeting Perth
one-on-one. Sunday will be a day of rest!

Steve got his first experience driving to the grocery store and made it without any one getting killed, so that was a plus. Then another major difference in cultures… he was just getting his bearings in the store (this is Saturday now, remember), and an announcement comes over the loud speaker that the store is CLOSING for the weekend at 5:00 p.m.!! He runs around the store chop-chop and collects enough food and drink for dinner and breakfast and checks out. We have to do a little more ciphering, but it appears that even with the exchange rate things (especially food AND gasoline) are more expensive here. Fuel is $1.38 PER LITER (quart) and that works out to about $4.60 per gallon with the exchange ratio), so no whining about $3.25 per gallon fuel from you Yanks in the house!!!

We got home and threw a little meat on the bar-be and settled in for our first night in Perth.

We remain, Steve and Carol, wandering around the world!