Flight to Australia

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We had three stopovers during our trip from Ostrava to Perth - Vienna, Seoul, Sydney. The whole journey was very smooth.

In the small Ostrava airport, we were greeted by a nice lady called Lucie from CCA company, who gave us the air tickets. The check-in personnel was so good, that we could even put the chain spray from our hand luggage to the boxes, which had already been checked in and sent to the luggage area. The flight with SAAB 340 aircraft of CCA - Central Connect Airlines took 40 minutes.

In Vienna, we had to wait for three hours. In the meantime, we ate mum's chicken schnitzels (yummy) and also saw the ex prime minister Paroubek, as you may guess right, he was in a suit and without a bike!

We left Vienna at 9 pm with Korean Air. The flight to Seoul took 9,5 hours. We had to wait 5 hours at the Incheon airport. Reny took a chance to paint her own Korean fan, which she later gave to our wonderful host in Perth.

Then, we continued on another 9,5 hour flight to Sydney where we anticipated problems at the check out due to the Australian strict protective rules. It is prohibited to import any agricultural or animal products and soil. We were told that we would have to open the boxes with bikes. Oh God, please, no! But the guy, who told us that, left and we could get away with the statement that the bikes were clean.

We had to take a bus from the international to the domestic airport. We didn't expect to pay for the airport transport and had no money exchanged yet. They wanted 10 dollars for 2 persons. One nice lady waiting for the bus as well, gave us 10 AUD for the tickets and said "It is a present" and disappeared in the crowd without taking EUR that we offered to her.

At the domestic airport, we put labels on each piece of our luggage, that we didn't take on board, with a name and tel. number of our friends in Perth. This turned out to be a great idea, because one of the official airport labels went off one of our boxes, so the airport people contacted Janet Cheeseman (our host) to make sure that the box was going to Perth. Our last flight with Virgin Blue took 5 hours. It is allowed to take only 20+7 kgs and we had 35+8 kgs, nobody wanted any money for the extra luggage.

Australia is full of nice people!

Western Australia greeted us with rather cold and rainy weather (aprox. 13 degrees). Who would have expected it? Should we take a Goretex jacket and a hat instead of a swimming costume? Let's see.

Janet and Don Cheeseman waited for us at the airport. They have been really great and looking after us very well.

The first two days, we spent sleeping, preparing of the bikes and buying food and other things for the journey. Janet gave us a ride in her car round Perth, we saw the marvellous King's park full of big trees of all kinds and a preserved bush right in the middle of the city, the popular Cotteslaw beach and bell's tower where Janet rings the bells; it seems to be a real art, there are 18 bells, 16 in use, a lot of patterns to play.


What was interesting for us at the first sight:

• Instead of sparrows, there are beautiful green and red parrots flying around.
• You have to drive on the left side here.
• There are mostly one-floor houses here.
• We feel like in a botanic garden here.
• Kids have to wear school uniforms.

Tomorrow, we are setting off north of Perth to the Pinnacles desert. Hopefully, the weather improves.

See you later!