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The part of the colonies trip I have been looking forward to is now with me as I get out of Singapore, with the help of Heavenly bodies (although less heavenly than my first flight, not through looks but more that they cared less) and down to Perth. A happy driver in the airport taxi ‘F’d and blinded’ his stories for the next 30 minutes before I got to a tired looking Crowne Plaza Hotel. The Hotel would be more at home in Bournemouth than Perth, but I will reserve judgement for a couple of days.

But before I reserve, let me say that the Hotel is fairly pricey and I wasn’t expecting a lounge and reception to be of B&B size. It must be the right hotel and sizeable as a Virgin Atlantic crew walked in which at least brightens the place with a bit of Blonde and Red. I haven’t savoured my room fully, but it does have a view of the Swan River, which must be what I am paying for in the rate. WiFi is a bit poor too. I remember my trip to New York with the boys in 2011 where we stayed in the Crown Plaza on Times Square and they had similar crappy wifi for a high premium. I can get a limited free service in The Lobby but it gets 2 staff to make it work and its has a download/upload threshold which I think my Blogs will blow.

As a safeguard I tap into the ipad to see where the local Starbucks are located. “Starbucks doesn’t make it in Australia!” says the headline. Oh. Must be other answers to the problem so I will venture out for breakfast tomorrow to see whats what and get an on the ground estimate of my options. WiFi has become my drinking water. It really upsets my day if I struggle to get online, ping the boys and update the blog. I now understand my Shaolin Monk of yesterday with his Blackberry. We really are adicted, we need it fast, we need it now and we need it for free. Of course there is no such thing as a free lunch, but if my Hotel wants to charge a premium lets have at least a good facility. This afternoon, I was asked by Hotels.com to give my verdict on the Prime Hotel in Beijing. A score rating and a comment box. It took me 5 minutes, ping submit, and..”I am sorry you can only have a maximum of 1500 characters in your response”. Aargh!.. Do you want guidance in 2000 characters or do you just want to hear in 64 characters some drivel that ‘it was a lovely hotel and they had a complimentary bottle of water in the room’. Is this moaning? I just want hotels to say what they will do and then do it. The Pan Pacific in Singapore did just that and I didn’t choose its Perth sister as it had a lesser write up than the Crowne. Hmm, if I had dished out another 100 pounds and gone with my inner feeling? Hey, this isn’t about Perth! The next few paragraphs will tell you what I think as I walk around.

I tap into google ‘Top 10 things to do in Perth, for ideas…This has been my standard approach to everywhere that I have landed so at least I get the right perspective and see the main things.

After a nice Irish Breakfast in a nice Irish Bar, surrounded by nice Irish staff, I was set for the day. Perth is a young and modern city compared to the other places and you immediately feel that it is a little corner of Britain. Perth is tucked into the bottom left hand corner of Australia and although it sprawls from town to town down the coast, the next main bit of land you would hit if you went out into the Indian Ocean would be South Africa or South America. I read up on the second breath of prosperity that the mining and raw materials is giving. China is buying in heaps, which is making Perth really expensive. The main ‘City’ part of the City is placed by the side of the Swan River which divides Perth into two, but it’s flat, so you always get a sense for where you are in relationship to the water. One of the first tasks was to get my hair cut and groomed so I made my way up a couple of blocks to Turner’s, which turns out to be owned by a lady who emigrated out here from Oxford. It is about 2 hours after the leaving the hotel that I bump into someone who spoke like an Aussie. Perth is very cosmopolitan.

In the afternoon my Sister-in-law Elaine’s cousin, Beverley, who came out to Perth in the late 60’s kindly picked me up for an official welcome to Perth to help me get my bearings. We drove up to Kings Park, which is a vantage point over the River where you get a good view of the City and the suburbs before heading out to the coast to get a glimpse of the Indian Ocean. Although there was a lot of cloud around the sky was the most prolific blue. It made me realise that I hadn’t seen really ‘blue’ sky in over 4 weeks. I had had clear skies but it was always hazy or smoggy. It was late afternoon and the sun was beginning to head downwards, so the shimmer across the deep blue made for a good photo. Unfortunately I didn’t have the camera to hand so it is in my head and you will just need to believe me. It was like one of the photo I had in a late evening from the Maldives when I was out with Sue for our 25th anniversary. I had a funny feeling of cornwall in my head, when looking at the bars and restaurants facing out to sea. Very beautiful. After a quick coffee, we headed up the coast road and within a couple of miles we could see a Paraglider hovering over the route. The closer we got the more incredible it looked. I have seen these guys hugging the cliffs before, but this one was so close to the road and so low, passing up and down, that cars stopped to watch. I didn’t see the news that night so hope he was alright.

After a further circular route of the area Bev took me back to her house and the wider family was coming across to welcome me. It was lovely to be at the centre of things, although I do struggle with people going out of their way to do things for me, but it was so nice. My thanks go out to Beverley and Husband Corrado (his home grown and prepared olives were excellent), Debbie and Husband Mark and Deb’s older twin brother Stuart (Stewy) and wife Liz. And not forgetting the kids that were around Anna, Emily, Andrew, Emma, Maddy, Ally and Emma’s gorgeous little girl Indiana (Indi). Indi obviously has everyone’s attention and why not.

The House view was spectacular, from the Dining table we could see the Perth City skyline and River, like a mini Hong Kong. Lovely, really lovely and great company, so thank you to all.

The next day I had to kick off with some preparation. I feel I have a couple of ‘operational’ days ahead as I try to plan my route across Australia. I had to get an Australian Mobile sim card and I wanted to get my bearings to the tourist office and a few practical things like toiletries again. Irish Breakfast start, creatures of habit aren’t we, but it was quicker than the usual herding that you get in Hotels. My sim card didn’t work, so I had to locate my other ‘as important as water’ place, the Apple Store. They pinpointed the problem and we would be able to fix tomorrow.

Elaine’s other cousin Deb, then picked me up for the second tour of the area with additional historical and local commentary as we headed out to Fremantle. Fascinating and interesting. Deb picked me up at noon and on the way she had said we would aim first for the Round House, a Customs and Prison Holding point from the early settler days that has a timing Cannon that is ignited at 1pm. Amazingly and without looking at the clock, as we walked up the steps, the Curator was just giving the final words and then a countdown to the cannon. We couldn’t have timed it better. In the next couple of days I will get some photos up when the Wifi is restored and I start clicking my camera.

We had a nice leisurely walk through the Marina, Local Brewery (free taster tray was a nice surprise to both of us!) and we had Fish and Chips in the main seafood restaurant for the Marina. This was very British with a bit of something unusual for us, sunshine.

After a guided tour through the streets of Fremantle, the fresh air had got to me and by 6pm I was almost ready for bed. Deb had been a great tour guide and an ambassador for the Perth Tourist Office. Well done Deb!

Since being in Perth, I have caught up on lots of sleep, but I have decided to give myself a kick up the backside to get my trip more defined and to get my camera clicking again, which I haven’t been doing for a few days.

Sunday was fairly peaceful in Perth, but I am determined to get the trip to Ayre’s Rock sorted. To be PC it is Uluru, as it is indigenous people land. Anyway, with a pointer from the Tourist Office that Uluru was not in their territory (I am in Western Australia and it’s in Northern Territories), they did point me to the Flight Centre about 100 yards away. What I find from time to time on my travels is that I get to logistical overload which ironically brings on frustration, which complicates your thinking. What I had in mind was, Flight from Perth to Alice Springs (‘Alice’ is bang in the middle of Australia), overnight stay there, a 3 day tour of the area and overnight camping, another night stay in Alice and then catch the Ghan Railway down to Adelaide. Thursday is also ANZAC day so is a public holiday, so a few things to work out. I was given some brochures to have a look at and I took the idea away to work out what I could do. This is where is all starts to unravel. The Ghan Railway stops at Alice Springs (Southbound) once a week on a Wednesday only. The 3 day tour starts on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday and there are limited flights from Alice to Adelaide. Whatever combination I tried, it keep giving me the wrong answer. I had thoughts in my head of being stranded at the Great China Wall and could it happen again, but delayed in days not hours. So after my short FaceTime call on sunday to Jon, which was more like him giving Dad a pep talk, I started Monday with more determination and I booked myself into the Hyatt Hotel in Perth for a couple of nights, much to the surprise of the Crowne Plaza. As I had a final beer of the evening on Sunday, the rain started to hammer down and it felt like I was in a Blackpool B&B on a wet bank holiday weekend. My motivation to ‘plan’ would have to wait until tomorrow.

Waking to a much brighter day and with the prospect of packing up and transferring to another Hotel, I had to be up and at it. I am still later than all the other guests as I saunter into the restaurant for a light breakfast. Although I have been eating well, my appetite isn’t as big as it was which may be good in the long run, so I was into Cereal, Fruit and Yoghurt. I checked out of the Crowne after a lengthy discussion with the Manager over Wifi and what he needed to feedback into his management teams if they are interested. They were shocked that I was moving and that I had a better rate for a better hotel with better wifi. They were pleasant though so I cannot fault them for personality.

I turned down a Taxi offer on the basis that the Hotel was Right out of the Hotel, Right at the next Road (up a Hill) and Right again at the first road leaving me 200 yards to walk to the Hyatt. They could have said to me ‘Turn Left out the Hotel and walk 100 yards and you are at the back entrance to the Hyatt!, but they didn’t’. I felt at Home as soon as I entered the Hotel. Large lobby, Large reception desk, everything that you would want and a large fountain in the middle. “I’m early by 3 hours, do you mind looking after my luggage?”. “That’s OK sir, we have your room ready you can go right up!”. You just get that feeling don’t you.

I headed back to my Travel company with a determination to get things fixed and within an hour it was. Great service the only issue being that my flight now ends up in Brisbane which is on the opposite coast so I will have to find a way to double back to Melbourne. But it is done and I leave on Wednesday midday, which is very sociable for breakfast, packing and check-in. My only issue now is that I know that I have 33Kgs of Luggage, the Tour allows me to take a maximum of 15Kgs, so I have to negotiate with the Hotel in Alice Springs to hold my luggage for 3 days. If it doesn’t then I am going to have to have a balloon debate with myself and lose half of the weight. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I have bought myself a small folding rucksack to fill up with the necessities, which will supplement my North Face rucksack. It will be interesting.

With the logistic done, I head up to Kings Park to get a better view of Perth and my promised photos. The sun came out in force, I tested my new suede cowboy hat (for outback purposes!, just to make sure we are in the same page) and I had time to relax and wander.

I could hear the Kookaburra’s laughing in the trees, but came across one that was in a great pose for me. The colourful Parrots were a bonus. So after 4 days I give you a posting. Apologies.