The Adventure Begins

It was an early start to the morning, with the alarm clock awakening us at 4.00am.  Just time for a quick shower, a cold drink, then we loaded the bags into the car and set off on our new adventure.  First stop was the long term car park at Palmerston North Airport and a flight up to Auckland.  We  were heading to Perth – and the Indian Pacific train journey which has been on our bucket list for some time. Taking off in utter darkness, the skies slowly lightened, and what lovely views.  To the East we saw the colours of a lovely sunrise, and out to the West, the rather hazy Mt Egmont away in the distance.

 

On the way to Auckland

There’s always a lot of waiting around at airports, and it wasn’t helped that the plane leaving before us from our gate was waiting for 15 passengers making it over half an hour departing despite repeated calls.  It turned out that there was a bit of a hiccough going through security which made all these people late.  So we had to find our way to another gate, and were taken by bus out to our plane waiting out on the tarmac.  No air-bridge way out here, we had to climb up some rather steep stairs, but were finally aboard and settled into our seats.

Boarding at last

And look, they were expecting us

As it was a reasonably long seven and a half hour flight to Perth, we decided to treat ourselves and upgrade to Premium Economy.  A good decision we felt, a lot more legroom, comfy seats, beautifully presented meals chosen from the menu, hot towels, and great service.  If this is what they do in Premium Economy, goodness knows what Business Class passengers get.  We were served a three course lunch not long after take off, and after a little snooze, another three course afternoon tea later on – a bowl of refreshing fruit salad, dainty sandwiches and  a fancy cake.  Coffee, tea, orange juice, soft drinks or wine was also available to passengers.

It’s always interesting to see what the people around you chose to watch on the TV screens.  There was a huge amount of movies on offer, and Robin decided to watch The Hobbit, and later listened to music.  There were people playing Patience, the lady in front of me binge watched about 10 episodes of Big Bang.  I’m a bit boring, and I’m quite happy watching the progress map as we went on our journey, as we get closer and closer to our destination.  Then of course I’m always on “wing watch”, making sure the wing doesn’t fall off, or the engine catch fire, and I take these duties very seriously!

Our journey was uneventful, just how we like, with a nice smooth landing in Perth, putting our watches 4 hours back to the local time.  I managed to get a much better photo of our plane once we disembarked, it was a Boeing 787.

We’ve arrived in Perth

We are staying in the Duxton Hotel for the first few nights, and could hardly wait to get into our room and take those tight compression socks off – oh, the relief.

A wander up the road to find an inexpensive but not very satisfying meal and that was us done for the evening.  Although our watches are telling us it it still early, our brains (and bodies) remember it being 4 hours later, so it’s time for bed.  Then hopefully we wake refreshed for more sight seeing tomorrow.