Monday, 13-10-2014. Day 54.

Time Travel and Science

At 6:45 a.m., we took off on our 11th plane in 54 days from Melbourne to Perth, which is on the west side of Australia in the state with the straightforward name of Western Australia.

Perth doesn't do the Daylight Savings thing, so it was three hours behind Melbourne (there's normally a two-hour time difference during standard time). That meant that after a three-and-a-half hour flight, we landed about 10:20 Perth time, only about half an hour after we'd taken off. Time travel is great!

The weather had been fairly cold for the entire time we'd been in New Zealand and most of Australia (with a few exceptions in Sydney), but that changed when we arrived in Perth. This place is hot — the temperature got up to 33°C today.

We caught a taxi and headed to the Murray Hotel in West Perth, our home for a few days. Once again, we couldn't check into our hotel until later in the afternoon. But the fine folks at the Murray let us store our bags there until our room was ready and even gave us some great ideas on what to do for the day.

We stopped for a coffee at Pony Express O (which seems to now be out of business), a narrow coffee shop near the hotel that serves a civilized cup of coffee.

We sipped leisurely as we read the paper. (Weird, I know). Apparently Perth is suffering from meth dealers and road rage against bicyclists, so it was a little like reading the news in Los Angeles.

When we were done with the coffee, we walked over to Scitech, a science-themed children's museum (a lot like the California Science Center), where we spent a few good hours doing educational (yet fun) stuff like:

• Tower of Hanoi Puzzle

• Paper Airplane Test Flight Center

• Observable Bee Hive

• Invisibility Cloak

• Huge Periodic Table (with elements!)

• Bed of Nails

• Air Cannons

• Slinky on a Rotating Incline

• Fake Guillotine

• Head-on-a-Plate

We were feeling a little tired after our scientific adventuring, so we walked back to the hotel, stopping at an Indian restaurant on the way for little lunch.

When we got back to the hotel, our room was ready, so we moved in. We were a little run down from a travel day, so we chilled out for a while, reading, napping, and writing until dinner time rolled around.

We didn't feel like venturing out, so we had dinner in the Murray Hotel restaurant, where I had my favorite IPA so far, Hop Hog from Western Australia's own Feral Brewing Company (it has a great rating on Beer Advocate). A nice way to finish a hot day.

Notable Statistics

• Hours on a plane: 3.5

• Hours walking: 1.5

• Taxis hired: 1

Header image: Looking out over Australia from Virgin Flight 59