On the next flight I ended up sitting next to a group of people who will be in my tour group for the next 3 weeks. Not all of them are going to New Zealand and some of them had a couple of days in Singapore. They were quite easy to spot because they had recovered from their jet lag days ago, whereas me and some of the people around me looked and felt like the day of the living dead. Again they looked older than me, I think I could be the groups younger generation.
The person sitting right next to me was our tour leader Gerry. A fifties something man born in Malaysia, who currently lives in Hove, East Sussex. He explained to me some tips of how to counter jet lag. ''It is all in the mind'' he said ''whatever you do, stay awake'', it is all very well for him to say that. He has worked for Travelsphere for 9 years.
After about 4.5 hours flight time we touched down in Perth, Australia. Took awhile, but the holiday starts right here.. The Ambassador Hotel in Perth was a short distance from the town centre. The centre is obvious because there are two skyscapers towering over the low lying buildings around. The room was spacious with a bath (small) and a shower. Thankfully a/c was included also; because as the evening went on the hot and humid atmosphere never dissapated. The next day after a very early morning I walked up and down the main street (Adelaide Terrace) taking these pictures. I actually woke up a the seemingly normal time of 1am. I went back to bed I had a further 2 hours of sleep and later I got up at around 5am.
We went on a Perth city tour on our coach which was driven by a local older man who knew everything about the city and the history. He mentioned, as we were driving past the WACA cricket ground that that was the place that England lost the Ashes. I thought but did'nt mention that we thrashed Australia in the one day tri nation tournament quite recently! We stopped at a park which afforded great views of the city, and then we stopped off at the first beach. Called Scarborough, funnily enough. We went for a bit of a paddle in the sea, and I tried to avoid stepping of the sand becuase it was red hot. Me and Gail (a similar person who went on this tour alone) went out for a meal in a noisy bar in Perth that evening. Gail works in the admin department of Cambridge Universtity; she is roughly the same age as my mother. We agreed that there should be more solo travellers on this tour, because we are the only ones.
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