Last year we nearly got to travel to WA; we managed to get as far as sitting on the plane before seeing news that WA would turn interstate travellers back, resulting in us getting off the plane before it left.
We’ve decided to try again and are currently sitting in the airport at the gate waiting to board.
We have 6 days, booked a car and a trip to Rottnest Island with a day or so in Perth.
The flight is just over 4 hours, hopefully we’ll get to actually take off, our first domestic flight for 10 years and our first flight for about 3.
Ah the joys of air travel I’d forgotten about – the plane was delayed by about 50 minutes, there was a screaming baby a couple of rows behind me and a few people who had their masks under their chin the whole flight. Arseholes.
I had a beef pasta thing on the plane which was ok, and a glass of wine because why not?
Got out of the airport and it was raining heavily but not cold. Took a taxi to the hotel, and discovered the bin in the room was full of empty KFC and McDonalds rubbish – luckily the cleaners were just outside and they were very apologetic but it wasn’t a big deal, just lucky I found it straight away.
Dropped the bags and walked into the city, just 10 minutes away.
I wondered if Perth was still in lockdown and nobody told us because it was empty. Everything was closed and there were about 5 people around.
Walked a bit further and more people started to appear, but still pretty quiet considering it was a Saturday afternoon – a lot of the restaurants were shut, and looking at Google most of them didn’t open till 17:30 / 18:00. We were 2 hours behind Melbourne, and it was now 16:00 which was approaching dinner time for us in Melbourne.
We walked around a bit and found a Tapas place attached to the Intercontinental Hotel, and it looked OK so we went in to ask if we could book a table for when they opened, but it turned out they had just started serving, so we sat down and checked out the menu – looked pretty good and in the end opted for the ‘Madrid Menu’ which was a set menu for 2 with lots of different dishes. I was tempted to order a side of something because it didn’t look like it would be enough. It was $65 each, which wasn’t too bad. I also ordered a beer, because why not?
The first course came out, a plate of toasted bread slices with tomato on top plus a bowl of olives. Very nice.
Then a plate of bread with the thinly sliced ham from Spain, with a small piece of cheese. Very nice.
Then a plate of patatas bravas, and one of calamari, and one of chorizo. A large amount of chorizo and potato.
Feeling a bit stuffed, Song said the last thing was a plate of churros, the doughnut things.
But instead came a plate of steak, and one of tomatoes.
Finally out came the churros, 8 small doughnuts filled with chocolate. I really couldn’t eat anything else, then I realised they were doughnuts filled with chocolate so forced myself. Song said she would have one and I could have the rest, but she had 3, obviously saving me from myself.
Hoping that was the end of it, paid the bill and left before they offered us a wafer-thin mint.
I usually over-eat on holiday, but not usually for the first meal.
We were the first there, but when we left it was pretty full, popular for a reason.
Really nice and great value.
We walked back to the hotel, it was still warm and lightly raining.
We pick up the hire car tomorrow, will probably skip the next 5 meals.