Checking out of Aussie hostels takes place at 10am. My flight from Adelaide to Perth was at 9pm. So I had to kill time for 11 hours while lugging my luggage about. Luckily, there are worse cities worldwide to be stranded in for a day than Adelaide, so I wandered around a few shops, ate a Chicken and Bacon Ranch Footlong in Subway (I finally had money for food!) and sat in one of the many parks, whiling away the time. And it wasn't too bad. While I was hampered by the fact that I had to keep hold of my three bags (main bag, laptop bag and overspill bag), I still managed to find an internet cafe where I could print out my boarding passes and documents for the days ahead, and I was also able to smash some top scores on Tap Tap Revenge. For those of you who understand Tap Tap, I'm just going to say this. Cascada's 'Evacuate the Dancefloor' (on Extreme). 1,081,662 points. 834 hit streak. The perfect game. Don't believe me? Here's a screenshot...
Anyway, the three hour flight to Perth from Adelaide left at 9.15, and arrived at 9.25. Confused? I was. Then I was told that there is a three hour time difference from Perth to the east coast of Aus. This only further upset my mind when trying to work out time compared to time back home. In Sydney and Hobart, it's an 11 hour difference, so it's just been a case of adding 1 to the time. Easy enough. Adelaide was more of a challenge, as it was adding 1 and a half. But in Perth, I have to take away 8. That was too much of a challenge for this Maths D Student (admittedly at A level after picking up an A* at GCSE...) so I had to keep using the inbuilt world clock on my phone.
So my flight arrived on Thursday evening in Perth. I checked in at about 10ish at night. Due to the flights that have been booked, I had to then check out at 10am the next morning, and wait around until 2345 for my flight. Which is what I'm doing now, in Perth airport, waiting for my flight to Johannesburg, South Africa.
So all of that meant I had only one day to explore Perth. I didn't really know much about Perth - much of my experience of it has been playing games on the Perth Wow website (as it wasn't blocked by the school's firewall). After checking out at about half nine, I had a look at a few maps and tourist brochures of things to do in the city. I had a few plans of things to do. I stepped out of the hotel, and was hit by a solid wall of heat. It was in a word, ridonculously hot. After only a few yards down the road, I was uncomfortable. It was too hot to even think straight, and the humidity made it hard to even breathe. I did the only sensible thing, and found somewhere air conditioned. Luckily, this place also did a full English breakfast, so I treated myself. I'd give it a 6 out of 10 - it did a job, but the beans didn't taste right. (And there is no place for scrambled eggs in a full English - it's fried eggs or no eggs).
I had a walk around Perth's shopping precinct, and then decided to take a walk down to the Swan River. (I realised that the Swan River is the main feature of Perth, so I wore my Graeme Swann tshirt just to fit in with the locals). It was partly a walk down to the river, but mostly a walk to the WACA (Perth's cricket ground). I've been to cricket grounds all over Australia now, and it would be churlish for me to come all the way over to Western Australia and not go for a look at the WACA. Sadly it was all locked up, but I had a little peek through the gates. I couldn't really see much, so I can't really offer an opinion of the WACA. Sorry. But I can tell you that it was hot (and I did feel the Fremantle Doctor - if you don't know what that is look it up).
After all of the heat and the walking (to get to the WACA it was an hour's round trip of walking - which when wearing flip flops really does take it out on the insides of the big toes), I was feeling all sticky and uncomfortable. Luckily, the Perth YHA (where I'd stayed for my one night in Perth) was pretty swanky for a backpackers hostel and had a swimming pool, so I was able to cool down nicely. And then, I got the bus to the airport, which is where I am now.
It's a bit of a shame that I couldn't spend longer in Perth. It all felt rushed - from having to quietly sneak into my room when I arrived so I didn't wake up my 3 roommates (who had left before I woke up so I didn't even get to see what they looked like), to having to get up when I didn't want to so I could meet the check out deadline, to not really being able to go too far away from the hotel just in case something happened. It wasn't really how I wanted to experience Perth. Which is why my review of Perth is basically of not being able to see into a locked cricket ground, and it being very hot. Which is a shame.
No comments:
Post a Comment