Thursday 30th October 2008

We've missed a day, of course, by travelling in a westerly direction over the International Dateline, I believe there's quite a ceremony when ships cruise over it, but not for us on a plane in the early hours.

The descent down to Melbourne gave us some lovely views of the city from the air - see left, where the photo almost looks like an Ordnance Survey map.

After a long journey described by Dave, we were pleased to arrive at our hotel in Perth and, in contrast to some of our experiences in the USA, the place is roomy. The hotel is not spectacularly luxurious, but we have a SUITE! Two bedrooms, a separate shower room and a kitchen area. Wow! And all for a price about half that of the hostel.

Jean

Have finally made it to Perth in Western Australia after a marathon 38 hours on the road, about half of it on on sat on planes,
The trouble started at LA Airport when of the 30 or so flights due out on the evening, only one -ours - was subject to delay. it turned out to be over two hours as the aircraft was late in from its previous haul from New York. So we eventually took off at about 0130 local.
The 15 hour flight looked like being 14 1/2 until approaching Melbourne when we were told there were local thunderstorms and the pilot was going to have to divert to Sydney to refuel to allow for any necessary stacking back over Melbourne.
So we then sat on the ground, not allowed out of the aircraft of course, for about 90 minutes before taking off for the one hour trip to Melbourne where by then all was clear and we landed, overall about four hours late.
Of course, along with many others, we had missed connecting flights, but we were able to rebook a later one for Perth only to find that was running about 45 mins late because of an earlier technical fault with the plane.
Anyhow, it was an excellent four hour trip across and the weather is fine in Perth - and the evenings light till about 8.0 p.m. at present. Longer as time goes on. Now relaxing in our Comfort Inn room (room 101) -planning to do the city where we have three full days before heading back to Melbourne for the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday. By the way, in connection with that, the horse I was tipped - Efficient - has damaged a fetlock and will not now run. Pity. Dave