26 February 2010
Perth
Perth airport is a welcome to 1983 experience, actually Perth in general is, its my least favourite Australian city, its also 42C when I get there. Being hot outside wouldnt be a problem at a modern airport would it? In Perth it is as the international terminal is an inexplicable 20 minute drive from the domestic terminal, through busy suburban streets with no dedicated road and a transit bus which I just missed that comes once every hour.
So instead I get to line up for a taxi with 100 other people, but there are none (this is Perth remember). After about 30 minutes I finally get into a taxi and tell him international terminal please, to which he answers 'Fuck, I waited in line for 2 hours for a lousy fare around the block'. The driver then continues to abuse me for quite some time about all sorts of things, tells me im a Sydneysider in a suit that should stay in Sydney (im wearing jeans and a tshirt and am from Adelaide). On the journey you go through an industrial area where Australias 2 largest supermarket chains have their major distribution centres, and traffic is down to 1 lane as they are putting in new lanes etc for this. So the journey takes 30 minutes.
Once at the international terminal, theres barely time before my flight to get into the poor qantas club, but I did manage to have a couple of chocolates.
The qantas club in Adelaide, which is pre international customs and shared between domestic and international flights.
My plane to Perth, older 737 pre wingtips.
This is the lunch meal on the domestic flight, red curry, its actually really nice, probably the best meal I had on the whole journey (blackberry picture).
A330, not my one though (blackberry picture).