Day 139 - Wednesday 22nd May 2024

Today has been an unusual occurrence in my big trip; a day with no photos or videos. If this suggests a day of travel to you, then you'd be spot on!  

Awake well before the alarm, and it was time to start rationalising. What needed to accompany me homewards and what didn't? The reason for this happening this morning was that after driving to Perth today I was returning the car, so I needed to be down to two manageable pieces of luggage. For the items at risk, I asked a basic question; when I get it home, what will I do with it? If the answer was that it'll live on a shelf or in a cupboard and not see the light of day, it didn't need to come home with me. I ended up taking a fairly weighty bag to the skip!

Luggage rationalised and manageable, I loaded the car checked out and was on my way to Perth at 08:40 with a stop just a couple of minutes up the road for supplies for the journey at a supermarket. A pretty uneventful journey where I must admit to cursing at other drivers ....... with a speed limit of 110 they happily motor at 110 until they arrive at a hill, then it's down to 85 as they climb the hill with no extra gas ...... and then you get to a straight bit where you think you can nip past it's up to the speed limit again. It really started to grind my gears today, so it's probably just as well I'm returning the car.

I'd set the Google Maps to navigate me to the cheapest fuel near the drop off point; this was Costco, and I pulled up here at 13:20. It turns out that you have to possess a Costco card to get your fuel here, so I found another servo to fill up the car before returning it.

I arrived at Ace Rentals at 13:40, and was advised there was no paperwork .... I mentioned the stone chip, they checked their records of the conversation I had a couple of weeks ago, and now there is damage paperwork to complete for the stone chip in the windscreen.

All sorted, I arranged and took a taxi into the centre of Perth and my hotel for the next two nights. As I was checking in, I enquired about things to do tomorrow, and they suggested I contact Australian Pinncale Tours and gave me the phone number. They are only 600 metres away, so I wandered down and arranged a trip for tomorrow ..... I'll not provide details now beyond the fact that I'm going hunting for Quokkas!

Then it felt like beer o'clock, so I visited The Fenian pub that I enjoyed a week ago for a couple of Guinnesses and a Steak and Guinness pie ..... just as good as last week.

So, I find myself without a vehicle for the first time since Sydney, but at this stage I'm quite relieved that I won't have to drive again for a little while. I really liked that car; in fact I've done well on this trip as I'd happily own either the Toyota RAV4 I had in New Zealand or the Mazda CX-30 that I had here.

And so to the tale of the tape ...... when I collected the car in Sydney it had 25193 kilometers on the clock. When I dropped it off, that had increased to 40421 kilometres, so in Australia I have driven 15228 kilometres ..... that's 9462.24 miles since 24th March ...... that's 59 days, so I've averaged 160 miles per day. No wonder I'm happy that I don't have to drive for a while! 

And so to tomorrow; the last full day here in Australia. I was told that the time would go quickly on this trip, but to be at the end already feels ridiculous. Time plays some funny tricks on you though ..... it feels like only yesterday that the train pulled out of Norwich Station on 4th January, but some of the things I've done on this trip feel like an age ago. Lots for me to mentally unpack when I get home to fully appreciate the trip I think!