We were 3 months late getting to Perth but better late than never…

What took us so long?

Our travels had been abruptly cut short just a couple of days after arriving in Bali from Hong Kong back in July, when a precautionary dive medical for Steve showed an issue with his lungs and our insurers suggested that we got back to the UK pronto. We thought we’d only be home for a couple of weeks, but it turned out to be 5 months in the end. We were homeless as our house was rented out for the planned 2 years of our travels, but luckily our great friends & neighbours Jayne & Graham have a granny flat that they kindly let us use. The medical stuff took far too long, so we paid privately and got a confirmed diagnosis of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (not brilliant) and the private consultant at the Royal Brompton in London then took Steve on as an NHS patient – a nice bit of queue jumping for not too much money. There’s no better centre in the UK to be in the care of, even if it is 200 miles form Devon, and Steve was relatively quickly prescribed anti-fibrotic drugs to hopefully slow progression of the disease, then we had to hope that he wasn’t one of the 60% with awful side effects (he wasn’t – so far!), and wait for 3x monthly blood tests to ensure that his liver was tolerating the meds. And if all those things were OK, we then needed to convince the medics to let him have more than the usual 2 months supply of medication – not easy as it’s £70/day – so that we could set off again while Steve is still fit enough to be an intrepid traveller. It was impossible to plan resumption of our adventure, so we had a few more ‘local’ holidays while this was all happening – 2 weeks in Sicily and 2 weeks Red Sea diving (for Debbie but not Steve, his diving days are over sadly) with Joe, Lol, Liz, James and Matt. And then one day in late November the stars suddenly aligned – latest blood test was OK, Brompton were happy to release drugs early so he’d have 3 months worth, and our insurers immediately booked our flight tickets to Perth (thank God that Debbie had taken the travel resumption cover add-on) and suddenly it was all systems go, or rather “oh shit, we are off to Australia in a couple of weeks time”. Talking of insurers, we are in awe of how amazing True Traveller have been – sadly they’ll only cover Steve for another year though as they are targeted at the adventure travel market and 65 seems to be the age at which they decide that you are too old for adventure!

Anyway, Debbie Greenham Travel Agency Ltd sprung into action and quickly sorted out the first 4 weeks of our 3 month trip to Oz, starting with 3 weeks in Western Australia – we could worry about the rest later.

Getting There

As excellent as our insurers are, they wouldn’t pay to get us back to Heathrow, so we opted to take the National Express coach from Paignton – cheap and more convenient than the train. Jayne gave us a lift to the bus stop and waved us off, Marc still can’t believe that people take the bus, and we overnighted at the Holiday Inn Express Heathrow Terminal 4 to ensure that Debbie would get sufficient nights at IHG hotels before year end to maintain her Platinum status. Too tight to pay hotel prices (sorry, but £26 for a burger is extortion) we headed back to the terminal, only to find that Terminal 4 doesn’t actually have any food offerings landslide so a transfer to Terminal 2 and a pretty crap pub meal it was. Back at the hotel, the aircon wasn’t working and it was unbelievably sweltering despite the date (9 December), so Princess Deborah complained (she’s a Platinum member you know) and we were moved and plied with free drinks vouchers.

As our insurers had booked the tickets, we were restricted to Economy but thankfully they didn’t scrimp on the airline and send us via China or Russia as we’d feared. We’d wanted Emirates but the flights were apparently more than the £1500/person limit. We didn’t understand as we were seeing prices of around £1200 1-way (stupid prices, but it is Christmas peak season) but it turned out they were buying us RETURN tickets. Oh well, if you insist! So Qatar Airways it was – Heathrow to Perth (via Doha) on 10 December, returning from Melbourne (also via Doha) on 6 March 2026 – watch out, that return date will become important later.

We managed to book emergency exit seats on 3 of the 4 legs at a total cost of around 600 quid, but Doha to Perth outbound eluded us. After a painful check-in queue at Heathrow, Steve saw an offer on the Qatar app for a business class upgrade for that Doha-Perth leg and just did it – oh well, there’s a lot to be said for spending Jonny’s inheritance!

We survived the 7 hours to Doha in cattle class – long legroom yes, but seats far too narrow for our fat arses – but were we going to make it for our connecting flight? It was tight anyway, and our flight was delayed by almost an hour at Heathrow, but with a bit of a stride through the airport and no stopping to look at the excellent shops, we got to the gate an hour before departure – phew. We might have made it but would our luggage? The AirTags were showing Steve’s luggage to be in Iran!!

Qatar are supposedly one of the best business class offerings, especially in the acclaimed Q-Suites – and yes, as luck would have it, ours was a Q-Suite flight with a private cabin for the 2 of us with sliding doors. I’m not actually sure of the point as anyone can peer in over the top anyway but it felt nice and exclusive. Qatar aren’t as in-your-face luxurious as Emirates, no Sky Bar, and the amenities weren’t as good (no lovely loungewear, and the Diptique toiletry bag was nice but didn’t have essentials like toothbrush/paste and deodorant) – first world problems obviously. But in their service offering, Qatar knocked it out of the park and made Emirates look poor in comparison. Your cabin crew member introduces themselves, sets your table (lovely linen, a warm bread basket and a ‘candle’), shows you your wine choice before pouring etc etc. Fabulous, and with lie flat beds and power sockets Steve could plug in his CPAP machine thus ensuring that everyone got a decent sleep without having to endure his snoring.

Breakfast was served just before landing, which totally screwed with our body clocks as it was 19.00 Perth time. Our passports worked with the electronic gates so disappointingly there was no passport stamp, Steve declared that he had sufficient prescription medication to open a small pharmacy (without the customs people even raising an eyebrow), and in less than an hour of landing we were in an Uber and on our way to the city.

Perth City

2 nights at Perth Intercontinental courtesy of the last of Debbie’s IHG points ensured she will keep her Platinum status for another year, qualify for an annual lounge pass and give us a suite upgrade for 5 nights. We weren’t that fussed about seeing Perth city centre but decided it’d be a good idea just to get over the journey and prepare for our road trip. It’s a good thing we’d not planned to do much, and that Perth isn’t full of ‘must-see’ sights, as Steve left the hotel for brekkie on the first morning and that was it! He was feeling rough, coughing for Britain and just wanted to sleep. Spoiler alert, a few days later Debbie wondered whether he may have COVID and bought a test – he didn’t have COVID, but he was VERY infected with Influenza A. The solid blue line was visible within seconds – there was no doubt about how high the viral load was, but thank God he’d been vaccinated as it could’ve been much worse, especially for someone with a chronic lung condition. Anyway, without knowing he had flu at this point, Debbie purchased various goodies for him at the pharmacy, ensured he had plenty of fluids, and set off to explore Perth in the searing 39 degree heat.

Even though Perth is a city of over 2 million inhabitants, the centre is surprisingly compact and not much bigger than a UK provincial town centre. City skyscrapers, corporate offices, shops and restaurants all mingle in the very small Central Business District, and just behind our hotel Wolf Lane had the most amazing artwork. Early on a Friday morning the city was relatively quiet, but after work it was buzzing but in a nice and relaxed way.

Debbie only saw a snapshot but it was enough to conclude that Perth is a pleasant enough city centre but nothing special – which is pretty much what the guide books say, and that Fremantle, the beaches and the suburbs is what Perth is all about. More of that later in our trip, but for now we had a road trip to do…..