Today was a day all about travel.

We left Frankfurt on Qatar Airways for a short (5:30 minute) flight to Doha. It’s a pretty decent flight as it’s in the afternoon and short enough that after a meal and a couple of movies, it pretty much gone. Let’s call this one the warm up before the main event.

After a two hour layover in Doha (decent airport, pretty modern), we’re back on the plane again for the 11:00 hour trek to Perth. There’s no getting away from this – it’s a long and boring flight and almost impossible to sleep due to constant turbulence and screaming kids. I can’t say I remember the whole flight as either I was completely zombified or I actually did sleep but did not notice because of the aforesaid disturbance.

Qatar airways is pretty decent, the entertainment system is good and the food palatable, best of all though is that there is decent legroom in economy so whilst sitting for 11 hours is torture, it’s at least bearable because there’s lots of opportunity to shuffle.

I had tried to blag a business class upgrade but as they wanted to charge me €2,600 per person, I decided on a few hours of discomfort and my new Traverest travel pillow (actually very good!).

Now a bit of a personal rant.  Why is it that when the plane is coming to a stop that people jump out of their seats before the seat belt sign has gone off and often before the plane has even stopped moving?  Is it because they fear that someone may steal their carry on?  Is it because they think that other people will stay seated (and they well be able to get off first).  Be calm people, be calm.

So we arrived in Perth at 6:00pm and after a quick dash through immigration (nice new e-gates in Perth Airport) and picking up our hire car we were at our accommodation by 8:00 pm.

Just enough time to pop out to the shops (everything closes in Perth at 9:00  -which is so strange given the generally clement weather) for some Aussie fish and chips before home to bed. The tour begins proper tomorrow.