Lovely Perth! Full of parks, green space and trees all kissed by the warm winter sunshine. Today sees us back in the CBD (Central Business District in Aussie parlance, city centre to the rest of us) with it’s wide streets an eclectic mix of gleaming ultra-modern high rise, Victorian gothic churches and grand 19th century public buildings that wouldn’t look out of place in London. As well as several examples of remnants of the old incorporated into the facades of the new and a rather twee recreation of an old English street scape vaguely reminiscent of The Shambles. Our first port of call is to the Indian Consulate office in West Perth very near King’s Park. The consulate employee is late arriving, fails to apologise for keeping us waiting and is rather rude when we explain that we have come to pick up our visas. Apparently we have the wrong office and are instructed to read the notice on the door! Once we find the correct office, our passports and visas are soon forthcoming, in fact we must be the only people applying by post and collecting in person as they know who we are when we walk through the door!
We spend the rest of the afternoon locating our hostel accommodation in Northbridge and the Wicked depot in preparation for tomorrow’s drop off. True to form, Wicked have provided us with the wrong address for their depot in Perth, which has moved from Northbridge to Bursford – a suburb on the way out towards the airport. So our carefully laid plans to have our accommodation within walking distance of the depot have been thwarted!
We round off the day with a fish and chip supper, and ice cream in MacDonalds before settling down to our last night in the van.