Day 62 - Singapore to Perth

  Perth, Australia
Saturday, November 3, 2007

Following last night's carnage we woke up a few hours after putting our heads down, and BEFORE our hangovers had started to hit us! In other words, we were clearly both still drunk ;)

We just about managed to call a taxi, get all our stuff down to the basement, get to the airport without being sick, check-in, get airside, and then we could relax.

Singapore Changi is a fantastic airport, great shopping, great food, great seating, free internet access, God I wish they were all like it...

We had S$20 left each to get some breakfast, and the food was incredible. I bought a wrap for the plane, had some cheesecake (for breakfast?!) and a lovely healthy smoothie. Yum.

The flight was with Qantas, and was excellent. New plane, new entertainment system (on demand i.e. you could pause movies etc), comfy seats, decent leg room, it was an easy and comfortable flight, just what we needed.

We arrived in Perth about 5 hours later, plus an hour's time change - for the first year ever apparently - and commenced the usual Australian arrival/immigration marathon...

Australia DEFINITELY have the strictest and most in-depth arrival check procedure of anywhere I've ever been.

They're EXTREMELY careful (paranoid?) about people bringing food, drink, plants or even soil into the country, in case it contains harmful bacteria, viruses, or anything else that could damage the local ecosystem. In a way it's admirable, but it's also a right pain in the arse because it takes sooo loooong to clear through customs. It all smacks of overkill.

Anyway, my good friend and fellow Liverpool fan Simon was due to meet us at arrivals and take us back to his house outside Perth, and I couldn't wait to see him.

Simon was in the Met Police force in London before deciding to emmigrate to Oz just over a year ago. We used to travel up to Anfield to watch Liverpool a few times each year, so we've had some great times together over the years.

As we drove through the Perth suburbs, and travelled the last few streets to their place, we realised that every road in Australia really DOES seem to look like Ramsay Street from Neighbours?!



Pretty soon we were in Challis, home to Si and his girlfriend Lisa, who were immediately very hospitable in true Ozzie style, so we soon had cold beers/glasses of wine in our hands, and were able to catch up with Si and get to know Lisa, who we both liked instantly.

The weather was amazing, probably 26 degrees C and bright blue skies. The only problem was the bloody FLIES! They were everywhere, because the baby flies have just hatched from their eggs and set off on their annoying life adventures. Now I understand why someone invented that stupid hat with the corks round it!!!!! Fair dinkum.

It was great to be able to sit down and relax, and after spying a netball post by the garage I was soon challenging Si to a basketball shoot-out, which was great fun. "Competitive Al" has been kept under wraps for most of the last 3 months, so it was WONDERFUL to be able to do some sport and give the verbals !!!!

We had a fantastic BBQ dinner ("barbie", of course) that night, with steak, snags (sausages), chooks (chicken), haloumi cheese, all sorts of stuff. Washed down with some lush wine and some Toohey's Dry, it was magic.

 

Here's Si with his monster barbie, which is about as big as our kitchen in London ;)



Si & I had the added bonus of live Premiership football today, so after the barbie we relaxed in front of Man Utd v Arsenal, which was a good game.

Si had to work the next morning so went to bed at a sensible hour, leaving me to watch the 3pm UK games at midnight by myself, and I stayed awake until 3:15am to watch Liverpool play Blackburn before getting to bed just before 5am! It was a battle of wills to stay awake through the reds game, it wasn't the greatest ever!

I can't tell you how good it was to watch 3 live English football games one after the other, and to watch my Fantasy Team playing like absolute legends for once!!!! Get in.

It clearly wasn't sensible staying up so late after a couple of hours sleep the night before, but WHATEVER, it felt sooo gooood....

I think we're going to like being in Australia, where the weather seems to be good at the moment, and where there will be no issues with language or communication!


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx