Aussie Adventure: Day 3

Blogger: Pat Lynch

Day 3: Arriving in Perth! 4th July

Arrived in Singapore at 2.15pm in the afternoon local time(7 hour difference in time). As I had a 4 hour overlay, I met some friends from Ardmore who now live in Singapore. My friend Bob called me at arrivals and took me by taxi to his apartment complex, which was only  10 minutes away. I caught up with Bob and Linda and had a nice swim in the pool and got the tube back to the Airport. Singapore Airport is fantastic for shopping and it is well worth ones time to look around. I purchased some memory cards for extra photos(which you will see in the next few weeks) for my camera and some film for my movie camera. My flight to Perth in Australia left on time at 7pm local time and I arrived in Perth 5 hours later at midnight. I slept most of the way to Perth as I was well and truly very tired at this stage. Customs in Perth are very thorough and they will not leave you bring in any meat, fruit or veg into the country. (TIP: It is a serious offense if you do!)

The leader of our exhibition, Robert Sharp and his wife Jill picked me up at the airport and took me back to their house where I would stay until we were due to leave for the bush on Saturday morning at 7am. There next two days would give me a chance to get over the jet lag and familiarise myself with the safety issues of the trip. It also gave me the time to prepare the van Rob and I were to travel in. The van was known as dessert fox. There were a total of 3 vans(6 people – all male over 50) on the exhibition and each van was about to travel 4500km deep into the desert area in the middle of Australia. I am the youngest on the trip at 52, Bob is the oldest  at 72 and the rest are all in between.

You might wonder how did an Irishman get the chance to do this once in a lifetime trip with 5 other Australian gentlemen? I met Rob in December, 18 months earlier when my family did a home exchange with his daughter and son in law(www.homeexchange.com). We had a wonderful time in Perth that Christmas(which was their summer). The trip was non simultaneous, which meant we got a chance to meet the people we did the exchange with and this was how we met Rob as he invited our family to dinner one night. It was in the course of the evening that I discovered he did these trips for the past 30 years out in the desert. I mentioned at this time that this was something I would love to do(half meaning!!). The next day Rob officially invited me on his next tour and this is how I am here in Australia today. Rob, his wife Jill, their daughter Sue, son in law Matt and their two children came to Ireland and spent some time in Ardmore, Co. Waterford and our home in Cork. During this time in Ireland, I had a great chance to ask him questions about the trip which wet my appetite even further.

Many of my friends in Ireland thought I was totally mad to undertake the trip – the dangers, the unknown but I felt I wanted to do it as I had never done anything mad in my life…I am seen as  very much a stable, regular guy. I have to thank Phyl my wife for giving me the time(3 weeks and 3 days) to undertake this trip. My key decision in doing the trip was that I did the rocking chair test. I basically closed my eyes and visualised that I was 80 years of age and rocking over and back in the rocking chair. I visualised that I did not take this opportunity to do this trip and how I regretted not doing it, as it was now too late to do it. You should try this sometime on any big decision you are about to make in your life.

More to come tomorrow as we get prepared for the outback!!

Pat