Going West Tour Day 1: Flying to Perth

By the numbers

Main bag: 10 kilos

Backpack: 6.8 kilos

2 planes

12,613 steps

9.45 kms

3 time zones

 

All I can really say for the start of the day is that I really should not have had two cups of coffee before heading to the airport as you can guess what that does, and its not anything to do with spot welding. At least the weather wasn’t wet like the day before and there was a little bit of cloud cover, but all was great. Today was the start of my great journey to the far West as in Western Australia. Perth I was going to land in before heading by train after a week to Adelaide, which is something else entirely.

 

It was pretty easy checking in as I was doing it all by my phone and my digi wallet. Easy as ‘beep’ done. The trip meant I would be flying to Melbourne, where I would then be heading to Perth. To say its going to be a long day is an understatement as well. At the airport we no longer need to take our laptops out of the bags when going through security, which was pretty good and not a problem at all. Since they have upgraded the airport the new international has its own terminal, and the old international area has been opened up for domestic flights, which is a little different. Nothing had changed in the layout apart from the new gates. The coffee had kicked in at the airport and then again on the flight, though at least I had an aisle seat and it was a short flights. The plane had a device holder and USB charger, which held my Kindle pretty well. Somehow I ended up with $10 credit for that flight that could not be used elsewhere. I asked. Seems most people on the flight had been up on the Gold Coast for the Magic Millions horse racing that I was pretty sure had been a washout.

 

Landing in Melbourne at the terminal meant I had to wander from one end of the terminal all the way to the other side just to get to the baggage claim. I had to check in for the flight and drop my bag off here. Jetstar isn’t like Singapore Airline where you meet the bag at the final destination. I was happy to stand around and when I checked to see if I could confirm I was there I had around 15 mins before anything opened for my flight. An elderly couple walked up to me asking where the bag claim was. I thought they had the impression I was with Jetstar, but no. I pointed to a sign as I tend to be vague at times, and then followed them to show them exactly where it was. They were on the Gold Coast flight too, so I can imagine how lost you could get not knowing the airport. That was my good deed of the day. I checked in as that killed a bit of time, but I had to wait longer for the bag drop. When I could try again I was able to drop the bag and run. The security found an issue with my bag, but it turned out to be the tray not scanning. It came back a second time without an issue. I found I had another long walk and ended up next to the gate I had left from, which was kinda pointless as I could have just stayed at the gate without walking all that way and back. In the line to get onto the plane, I had to weigh my bag and there was no penalty or anything for anyone for heavy bags. Melbourne was actually pretty cool on my way onto the plane.

 

The plane didn’t have a USB or book holder, so I was back to holding my device and trying to ignore the family next to me and on the other side. One boy was upset he didn’t get to sit with mum, but that was my aisle seat and I was getting food with my ticket. He was happy with a window seat with his day, while the other brother had a window too. It was a pretty uneventful flight even if it was a long one over to Perth. Once at the airport, you could see that it was pretty dry and just a little quiet. I thought I was home free as I started to wait for the bus and my bowels decided to indicate they needed to sort an issue out now rather than later, so that required precision handling at the airport. I managed to get the next bus and got a ticket, but didn’t realise it was a ticket to Freo as well. I wasn’t paying much attention since I got another $5 ticket for the train. I could have gotten onto the Fremantle train from Perth main station, but I wanted to get on it at Claremont, where I asked about my zone 4 ticket. The security guys said it was correct, which made me happy as I didn’t want to be caught scamming the system.

 

I was getting worried as I wanted to get into Fremantle and the hostel before it got dark. Dusk was occurring as I found the hostel and since I was staying at the YHA at Fremantle Prison, I was pretty happy. I got a touch distracted along the way, but it was pretty easy to find my way around the town. The buildings are all the old historic convict built types. I had finally made it to Perth and I was happy to be at my final destination of Fremantle, although I found the local IGA for some quick food as I was hungry, but didn’t want to wait too long.