I had to get back from Margaret River to Perth Airport to pick up Qantas QF10 travelling from Perth to Melbourne, a ‘free’ leg of my trip by dint of the fact I had flown in on QF10 to Perth.
On the 3.5 hours from Margaret River, there was little in the way of services, until you reach the Foodary, an enormous highway petrol station and services.
At Perth airport, be warned, there are 2 Hertz ‘Car Return’ areas and of course, nobody told me about it and I went to the wrong one! Luckily I had 2 hours in hand and had an extra 15 minutes of drive to get from one to the other!
By the time I reached the international terminal (Terminal 3) to get QF10, the Qantas app had dinged about 3 times saying that check-in was closing!!! Why?! What’s that all about?
When I got into the terminal, I asked a Qantas staff member who said I’d need to run to the check-in area. When I reached there, there was a long queue, the lady helping at the ‘self-help check in’ walked off and refused to help me (or anyone else in the queue) and I decided to trust to the fact I still had 1 hour and 40 minutes in hand.
It was all a drama nobody needed. Sadly, though, taking QF10 is the same as taking an international flight, so you have to go through domestic security and then go through international security (the same process again!) and they took my very small nail scissors. Sigh. The first of two pairs I had with me (guess what has happened since to the second pair!??).
There is one bar/restaurant, a duty free and a small shopping area in this international part of T3 at Perth.
It’s OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive (no shock, it’s an airport and in general Aussie food is more expensive than in Europe).
I wasn’t sure there was anything on QF10 and I was hungry by now, so a croque monsieur was ordered and arrived, looking massive!
No duty free needed by me! Or by anyone else by the looks of it!
The plane was already there and those people coming from London to Melbourne were sitting around in the departures area. They must have been exhausted!
It didn’t take long to get aboard and Qantas dispensed with any ‘row by row’ or business on first nonsense (not that I was in business!).
I was seated in a very uncomfortable position of an aisle seat beside someone who struggled to fit into their seat. She was great fun altogether and we made it work, but it was quite tight!
There was a snack on board and I could barely peck at it – a quinoa and pea salad with sweet tomatoes and chicken.
Before landing, the staff brought around a Mango ice cream bar – which was refreshing and delicious as (with time difference of 3 hours), we arrived quite late in the evening into Melbourne.
And yes, this was an arrival into International Arrivals, meaning going through passport control again. However, the addition of an orange sticker to our boarding passes made this process a little bit faster and there was a ‘special aisle’ for those of us who had already visited Perth. Good move, Australian Border police!
All that remained was an easy Uber drive into the Melbourne CBD and adapting to 3 more hours of time difference! A snip!
Hope you’re well,
Patrick xo
