Saturday 28 March 2009

Perth - here I come (and go)


I hate doing things in a rush - but there has been little choice. Despite all the "toings and froings" about Korea, I still had the air tickets to Western Australia and South Australia. When I received the details about Korea I was leaving earlier than I had been told, so the pressure was really on.

Having decided to cut my trips to WA and SA short, I was really freaking. But with all that I flew off to Perth on Tuesday 24th.

The trip across from Brisbane to Perth was over 5 hours. Uneventful except for Lake Eyre. I had heard that this amazing lake had water in it - it is mostly a dry salt pan, where recent floods in Queensland had filled the lake. There was a lot of cloud and I felt that I'd miss it, but when the plane was somewhere over the lake, the clouds parted and a most amazing sight greeted us. To understand more about the lake read here. It was a sight that few people would have witnessed - this huge lake full of water. Beautiful dark blue water with aqua blue water near the edges and what looked like white beaches along the fringes.

It is not easy to take a phone from a plane - especially one at high altitude, but I am glad I have some (albeit slightly fuzzy) images of that amazing sight. I don't know how long it took us to fly over it - maybe 45 minutes or more - which will give some idea of the size of it.

Toby - my friend from all those years ago - was at the Perth Airport to meet me. Toby (we always called her Toby - and I had spent little time together over 45 years, as we lived on opposite sides of the great continent. We had lots of catching up to do. I had anticipated we would stay in Perth, but I was delighted when she suggested that we just go to her home in Dongara - way north of Perth.

We gave our tongues a great workout! For the whole trip, and the whole stay there! It was so good to catch up and swap stories.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

My eldest boy lived in WA for five years - four at Perth and one year at Port Hedland - godforsaken place the latter!

Di Hill said...

My friend lived in Port Hedland and was married to a Kiwi.

Di Hill said...

By the way, I wonder that there are any folk left in NZ - so many Kiwis are here in Australia.