Down Under with Daughter - Planning & Arrival - Perth
She left on the 12th February 2024 and we first saw her again on the 15th February 2025. When we’d waved her goodbye at Heathrow Airport that cold winter evening, we thought she’d be back by June. How wrong we were! A year of life later, 12 months filled with far away adventures in Australasia, we finally set eyes on her again in Sydney airport in the summer sunshine, her skin glowing, her hair flaxen and her smile as dazzling as ever. It was the best hug I’ve ever had and the tears finally started to flow as I was overwhelmed by the emotion of having our middle daughter back in my arms again, the virtual hugging of the last year finally realised into a long, warm, strong embrace. The 367 days which had passed between us in opposite seasons and sides of the planet dissolved in an instant and it was as if those 10,000 miles of separation had never actually existed. But most importantly, for the next two and a half weeks she was going to be all ours again, travelling with us on our explorations of New South Wales and Queensland.
Prior to the big reunion, N and I had already done a whistle-stop tour of Western and Southern Australia, taking in Perth, Margaret River, Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road. We were to be away for the whole month of February taking in as many of Australia’s main attractions as possible on the road trip of a lifetime. Still to come were the Blue Mountains, Hunter Valley, Port Macquarie, Byron Bay, Brisbane, Noosa Everglades and Noosa Bay, The Whitsundays and Fraser Island and catch-ups with long lost friends along the way.
We had last been in Sydney at the end of 2011 as a brief stop-over on our way to New Zealand - and that was the only bit of Australia we had ever seen. So our itinerary (with the huge help of Trailfinders) had been devised to capture the essence of all that the largest island in the world, the continent of Australia, has to offer. I guess you could call it a tasting menu which, in my view, are the best kind!
While being constantly on the move may sound exhausting, you have the excitement of always moving on to something new - so if you’re not so keen on where you are, it really doesn’t matter as you’re only there a night or two! I think the longest we stayed anywhere was Byron Bay, where our daughter was based, but all the rest was from 1 to 3 nights long - yet it’s amazing what you can see if you get on with it! In essence we only had one full day in Perth, one full day in Melbourne, one full day in Brisbane and two full days in Sydney. You certainly have to be prepared to do a lot of walking (which was challenging for me as I’d knackered my knee slipping over on a muddy dog walk not long before we came away - and then skied on it!) but we found that you can come away with a really good idea of what the city is all about even in that short time. The other places we visited - vineyards, mountains, coast, islands - were also just a toe dip, but a very satisfying and enjoyable one nonetheless.
When we first came up with the idea of going to Australia to meet up with our daughter and see how she’d been living her life Down Under, it was quite a challenge deciding what to include or ditch. I had a strong idea that I wanted to see Western Australia with it’s quintessential landscape of blue seas, red earth and baking emptiness; I wanted to see some iconic wine-growing regions; I wanted to sample classic Aussie beach life and to see some natural environments completely unique to this extraordinary continent. The one place we were advised against on this trip was Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock) as it would be like a furnace and full of flies and tourists in February. The Northern Territory was similarly ruled out as being far too hot and humid during their summer - and at the end of the day we had to draw a line somewhere so they seemed like perfectly valid reasons to draw it there. I would have squeezed in Adelaide and Barossa Valley if I could, but it was a bridge too far - and I was more keen to make sure we included Perth and the west in our crazy itinerary.
And so it came to pass that at lunchtime on the 5th February 2025 we found ourselves at Manchester Airport sipping beers and bubbly in one of the bars before boarding our Qatar flight to Doha and on to Perth. Twenty-four hours or so later, we trundled our trolley out into the hot and humid darkness of an airport car park on the other side of the world. They’d just been ‘enjoying’ a heatwave and it had left it’s mark on the temperature gauge. No complaints here though, having just left the UK in February (although ironically we’d left on a rather lovely sunny day!). Hire car sorted, we drove through this alien city to find our accommodation in Perth’s Central Business District. It’s always a little disorientating arriving at night but the city looked promising and we were looking forward to stepping out for a bite to eat once we’d checked in as there looked to be some lovely places nearby. However, we were ignorant of the dining hours of our Aussie friends. By 10pm it’s dead as a dodo and everyone’s tucked up in bed! So we trawled our way around empty streets, peering through closed doors at what would have been buzzing two hours ago, desperately trying to find somewhere which would feed us! That place ended up being in China town. And very good it was - this area being the only one in the city which still had some life in it!
Replete with noodles and ramen, we walked back to our hotel and sunk very happily indeed into our comfortable bed, looking forward to the adventures to come…
Comments