Our Journey RSA to Perth Western Australia. (WARNING: VERY LONG POST)

Cape Town to Johannesburg (JHB)
Isn’t it funny how just before you are due to embark on a long journey, you hear about or see programs on crashes etc., this is exactly what happened on Friday night! Much to Tammy’s horror, there was an airplane crash programme on one channel & a plane hijacking movie on another!! So the TV was turned off & we needed an early night anyway, a long day awaited us.
We woke up at 5 am on the 28th June 2008. Packed in the last few things & loaded up the rental car (a Polo 1.4) & made our way to Cape Town airport (arrived at 7am). Left the car as instructed & went & had our 8 suitcases wrapped in plastic (11 in total but 3 bags were for hand luggage). Went & stood in the check in que, a very long que at the SAA counter.
After standing there for about 10 minutes they asked for anyone still checking in for our flight, SA314, to move across to 3 other express counters. We checked our bags in right through to Perth; we also had our boarding passes printed for the JHB to Perth flight. As they had called our flight to board, we went straight through to the gates & got on the plane. Decide to hand in our one bag to be kept in the hold as we were boarding, thinking we would received it on disembarking, the flight was extremely full. We had a bit of a bumpy ride due to high winds causing a lot of turbulence, our take off was also delayed by a few minutes, but as we had a strong tail wind we arrived on time in JHB. On disembarking we discovered they had unloaded all the hold items with the other baggage & we needed to go & collect it at the baggage claim. This horrified us as we had not locked or wrapped the bag, but then discovered they had put on a cable tie & all was OK.
JHB to Perth
As they are also busy upgrading JHB airport, we decided to meet everyone at the Spur at the domestic terminal (a good suggestion made by my uncle Colin). The service was almost non-existant, but the benefit of that was, we got to sit there & visit for our entire stop over. My granny, Cathy, & Colin were our first visitors! Next to arrive was Mem, Conrad’s sister, & her children, Simeon & Anneke. Then Karen & Jan arrived, shortly after which Colin & gran departed, they were on their way to visit Connie.
We then ordered some lunch for everyone, after which it was time for us to head over to the International departures building. Said good bye to everyone & went through to customs & duty free. WOW the stuff is SO expensive! (or so we thought). We still had some ZAR on us to spend, & decided on a set of 6 shot glasses with the big five printed on them. Our flight SA280 was then called for boarding & we went through to the gate.
It was a pretty full flight so the que was long, but as Savannah was with us they gave us priority to be seated and we went through quickly. We left O R Thambo Airport (JHB) delayed by 30 mins. The flight started out pretty bumpy, but then smoothed out. Drinks, & then an early dinner was served (Chicken or beef HEEHEE), then came the duty free shopping trolley. As all currencies are accepted we chose two items to finish our ZAR: a model of an SAA Airbus & perfume. Nice! Now armed with just AU$ we settled in for the long flight.
Savannah was able to sleep for about 5 Hrs as we let her lie across both of us to stretch out. We however only managed a broken 3hrs if that, too much noise thanks to an inconsiderate fellow passenger! Anyway, woke up & had breakfast, then hastily filled in our passenger card as we started descending, I don’t know why they didn’t give it to us sooner. They then sprayed the interior of the plane to fumigate everything before landing.
Perth
The weather in Perth was a wet &cold 10°C reminding us of Cape Town! We disembarked & headed into the terminal. Very small in comparison to what we were used to in RSA (& rather blue, Conrad said that maybe they had been given the blue paint for free...). Everyone was very friendly & we went to collect our bags. With our two full trolleys we made our way to customs, where we declared all our medicines etc. They sent us to another que where all they did was x-ray our bags & waved us through! Never even opened one of them! My contact sheet, (where I listed: names, DOB, passport no’s, temp address & tele no, new employers details, both old employers, next of kin details & a friends contact details); made filling in the passenger card (and all other forms so far) easy!
Our Perth contact collected us as promised, so wonderful to walk out & have someone waiting for us! She drove us to our accommodation at Perth Central Caravan Park. Our Cabin was ready for us, so we unloaded our bags. We are booked into a 1 Bedroom unit, with a sofa bed for Savannah ($105 per night incl linen).
We unwrapped & open our luggage, just checked it through. First port of call was a much needed shower! AAHHHH! Wanting to avoid jet lag we decided we would try to stay wake till the evening. Now we were hungry, took a short walk to a convenience shop at the gas station, WOW the prices were shocking!! Bought us each a pie for lunch & some milk, sugar, cornflakes, Tim tams (just had to!)& coke $45 for those few things. We went back to the cabin to eat. We were getting sleepy hanging out at the cabin, so went to the office & got some tips on how to use the busses to get to town. Walked up to the bus stop& hopped on a bus into town.
Town was busy, lots of shops open, so we went & bought a sim card, then seeing how we were battling on orientating ourselves, looked at a few GPS options. Decided on a Navman S80 from a Hi-Fi Corp type shop, it has the text to speak option we wanted & nice display. It was $464, a bit more than we budgeted for, but worth every cent! While walking around we came across the Westpac branch where we need to activate our bank account, as well as Centrelink offices, so knew we would be back on Monday. Also came across a Woolworths, MUCH cheaper, bough some goodies to see us for two or three days spent $54. So now we were truly exhausted, back to the cabin for dinner. While trying to figure out which bus stop we were supposed to be at (we don’t really understand how it works yet), the same driver who took us into town saw us & hooted to find out if we were ready to head back, lucky for us, we just hopped on as we had a day pass ticket ($8.10 for the three of us).
Back at the cabin, we heated up the lasagne, activated our sim & sent out the "arrived safely" SMS to all & fell into bed. Savannah woke us up at around 2am, & we thought we’d battle to go back to sleep, not the case, thank goodness! Just wish people in RSA would bear in mind when sending us a SMS that we are 6 hrs ahead of them!!! It was very cold, temp went down to 3°C, brrrrr! Couldn’t figure out the aircon, will have to ask at the office. (Blame it on being blonde!!)

2nd Day in Perth
Set our alarm to wake us up at 7am as we needed to find our way to collect the rental car. After checking the GPS we decided we’d walk as it was only about 3km’s away. It actually turned out to be closer to 5km’s away, shame Savannah walked most of the way too, very far for her! At least it burnt some of her energy as we knew we’d be driving around or sitting filling in forms. Just before Bayswater car hire, we stopped in at a car dealership & looked at 2 cars. A bit more than what we’d budgeted for, so we decided we’d rather look around a bit.
Drove into town (no getting lost, thanks to GPS). Found parking (what a mission) Learning experience $5 on parking meters!! It’s definitely a better idea to use the bus to go into town, not too much parking available & quite expensive. (must seem like really dumb tourists with the questions we ask!)
Went to Westpac bank, only to discover that we needed an appointment with a consultant to activate our account & arrange other bank cards etc. The lady who assisted us directed us to the Medicare office in St Georges Terrace.
At the Medicare office it was very busy, but we walked in & found we needed to get a ticket for a place in the que. The que was divided into different types of services so some of the ques moved very fast. We waited 15 mins & then were assisted by, you guessed it, an ex-South African. We mentioned we needed to find an internet cafe or Wi-Fi spot to sort out our Tax File numbers. She said that the Australian Tax Office (ATO) wasn’t far, they are situated at 45 Francis street Northbridge, we should just go there.
Then we walked up to the Centre link offices, only to discover that Family assistance has been moved to Medicare. Decided we’d grab some lunch (some ham & rolls from Woolworths) & head over to the ATO.
We went in & put our names down to register, we were called shortly & shown to a PC. The Guy gave us some instructions & left us to register on-line & print out reference numbers. We should have our numbers within the next three weeks (they’re busy upgrading their system therefore the delay).
Savannah was now bugging us to see the beach, looked at some names on the GPS & chose City beach. It was about 12 km’s from us so off we headed. Very nice & clean, even the public toilets were clean. Water’s much warmer than Blouberg beach.
As it was only 15:45, we decided to head back to Ascot & stop in at Shepperton Ave / Albany highway (like Voortrekker Rd in Cape Town) to look at cars as there were quite a few dealerships (we noticed this while riding into town on the bus). Looked at a Mitsubishi wagon, not too bad, decided to think on it as we had discovered we would battle to get a good reliable car for $3000 & decided we’d up our budget a bit. Walked down a bit & chatted to a salesman working on a commercial lot. He was just chatting to us as he didn’t really have anything suitable. As we turned & walked away, he called us back & asked us to hang on a bit as he wanted to just check on something. He came back to us & asked if we’d be interested in a 1996 white Toyota Camry. It was his company car, & his boss had given the go ahead to offer it to us at $4500. Took the car for a drive & decided this was to be our car. We paid a deposit, as we weren’t carrying enough cash on us, & made arrangements to go back tomorrow.
Back to our base! A quick dinner & off to bed!

3rd Day in Perth: 01 July 2008
We were up at 7am again, as we needed to be at Westpac by 9:30. Walked up to the bus stop & waited for our bus. A young guy saw us trying to decipher the bus timetable & started chatting to us. He gave us some pointers on how to use the busses. On boarding the bus we discovered it would’ve been better to make our appt for later as after 9am the day rider ticket applies. Anyway we learn as we go!
We arrived in town by 9 so stopped in at the Medicare offices to enquire about family assistance. It was much quieter so early in the morning. We were informed we needed to phone in or do an on-line interview first, then we’d be told what to bring in to register. So, on to Westpac.
At Westpac we were given excellent service! Cards will be ready for collection next week. It just took a while, we were there for about 2 hrs!
Now needing a restroom, we found one nearby. So clean & still can’t get over the fact that they put out double ply loo paper for use.
Tammy’s sister then phoned as we were walking towards the underground station to check it out. En route we stopped at a bookshop & bought a UBD 2007 edition for $10 (2008 edition was $20, how much could’ve really changed?).
Back to the bus stop, as we needed to go & collect our car. Picked up the rental car, had top up the fuel before returning it. It wasn’t as difficult as we expected, just lift the nozzel, check the pump zeros, and insert nozzel into tank. Pull trigger until desired amount or till full (can clip lever if wanting to fill the tank, it will then click off once full) There is a lot of trust on the gas stations part,as it would be really easy to just drive off. Then back to the car dealership we went. Paid the remainder of the cost & signed all forms. Strange how no road worthy is required, just a change of ownership form & stamp duty to be paid. The car is licensed till Dec 2008 so will only need to renew in Nov, bonus! Then we took the rental car back & received a refund.
As our basic food supply was almost depleted, we decided to find the IGA Supermarket near our base. Programmed the address into the GPS & got there without a hitch. Took a trolley (now I see what everyone is on about, all 4 wheels steer!)& started shopping. We were pleasantly surprised as we filled the trolley half way, the total was under $200. Now armed with a full week’s worth of groceries (if not more) back to base!
Needed to do laundry (glad there’s a laundry at our disposal), & made a great dinner: Lamb chops, green salad & corn (Savannah’s request). So good after eating on the move/take out for so long. End of another day!
We are very happy with what we have achieved so far! Meeting Conrad’s new boss tomorrow, so now it’s time for bed!

4th Day in Perth: 2 July 2008
Up early, need to fill our car up as it was pretty empty when we collected it yesterday! Used a fuel voucher received when shopping to get 4c per litre discount, cost us $91.75 for 57.7L. as we were only due at Hyster West at 10:30, we decided to check out one of the surrounding suburbs. Stopped in at an Estate agency & picked up their rental listing, only 2 available. Gave in our contact details & went on to another agent. This time they had more available & the lady was very helpful. Drove around & checked out the houses, not too bad, we liked the area: Canning Vale.
Met with Mike, it went well, sorted out starting date etc. Conrad had a tour of the workshop & was shown the vehicles allocated to technicians, very impressive!
Right back to looking at suburbs. Drove through Wellitton, Leeming, Bull Creek, Beelair (said beelia), Yangebup, South Lake, Atwell & Success. Of the lot we preferred Canning Vale, Atwell & Success. Not 100% happy to leave it at that, we decided to go further south & see Rockingham.
We really liked the area, especially the fact that it’s on the coast! Popped in to real estate agents (x6) funny enough all next to each other. There were two we liked open for viewing one at 16h00 & the other at 16h40, so headed off to take a look. The one was in a new area, not even on the GPS, got a bit lost (& were pretty stressed after a long day) arrived just in time. We loved it!! Then off to look at the second one, & hated it, really awful! While in the car in between houses, Tammy filled in the application to be able to apply for the first house. Then after the second viewing, went back to the agents office & completed the forms, gave an option fee & our rental pack (all details typed on a contact sheet, copies of passports, visas, letter of employment, reference from previous landlord in RSA, letter from bank showing bank account details). Now we wait & see.
As it was after 18h00, we went back to base, 54 km’s away. Will head back tomorrow to look at some more places & see more of the area.
On arriving at our cabin, we found mail on our doorstep, it was a letter advising us of the expected arrival of our container on the 10th July, so needed to fill in forms & get them back to Chess (the company handling things this side on behalf of Britannia).

Day 5: 3 July 2008
As Chess was just down the road from the caravan park, we decided to just deliver the forms & check that all is completed OK.
We needed to go back to Hyster West to collect Conrad’s letter of employment. So that was our second stop of the day.
We then headed back to Rockingham. We needed to drive past some of the available rentals so we could make appointments to see those we liked. Still waiting to hear about the one property we applied for, hopefully we’ll hear tomorrow.
Lunch! To save $ we’ve been packing in home-made lunches, like hotdogs, sarmies etc. We took our lunch to the beachfront & ate it while watching a cold front blow in over Rottnest Island.
Then we went to investigate the large shopping centre in Rockingham, we’ll be back there to buy a few things soon. We also drove past Mr Rental, & stopped in to see what it would cost us to rent a few items. It works out to $210 for hiring a 300L fridge, a 5kg washing machine & a microwave for a month (min time) not bad.
Then we went into Bunnings! Conrad was in Heaven!!! Builders warehouse could learn a thing or two. We bought a clothes horse as it’ll save some $ as to wash in the caravan park is $4 & to tumble dry is $4.8 for a large load.
With the rain we discovered the wipers on the car needed to be replaced, so stopped in at Repco to get a pair. Time to head back to the cabin.

Day 6: 4th July 2008
As we are in a self catering cabin we are expected to clean it ourselves for the duration of our stay, so todaywas selected to zoom around it quickly & do the necessary. As we were still waiting to hear from the agent regarding the outcome of our application, & we had no viewing for today, we decided to head west to Fremantle.
The weather was wet & overcast so we stuck to the market & browsed in the shops. The buildings are beautiful, many old churches in the area. From what we could see, the docks seem a lot smaller than Cape Town. Conrad has been told that he’ll mainly be working in the docks, so he’ll know soon enough.
After a Hungry Jacks lunch (decided to splash out a bit) we had had enough of the area & as we were wanting to check out IKEA, punched in the request to the GPS & headed north to Innaloo.
We stopped in at The Good Guys to see what they had to offer, not bad prices, will be back when we have some $$$$. Tammy was looking at the vacuum cleaners as ours had to stay in RSA. The sales lady couldn’t assist but told us to pop in at Godfreys.
We saw Godfreys en route to IKEA, so stopped in. While looking at what they had to offer, & Conrad was chatting to the saleman, THE call came in from the agent, WE GOT THE HOUSE yay!! We’ll sign the lease on Monday & move in same day.
Now with a permanent address, we would really need the vacuum, so we bought one of the ones on special a Wetheim 4808 2000 watts. Then on to IKEA. WOW!!! Lots to see at reasonable prices. We were now looking out for beds & chests of drawers as our house only has hanging space in the bedroom cupboards. After browsing & deciding to leave the furniture for now, we went down to the 1st level to get some linen & kitchen basics (our container will only be delivered at the end of July). Signed Savannah into the play area & grabbed a trolley. Stocked up on a set of pots, some cutlery, duvets, duvet covers, sheets & pillows, etc.
End of another day in the friendly city of Perth, so back to base.