Business trip to Perth

Half of my job is being a retail pharmacist at the chemist in town, the other chunk of my work life is taken up with being a hospital pharmacist.  Twice a year all of us Regional Hospital Pharmacists are flown to Perth for a meeting to discuss issues in pharmacy, policies, etc.  There are only seven of us there (WA is divided into 7 different regions) and being a smaller meeting it seems that lots can be achieved in one day! I had to chair a few of the discussion topics along with the Regional Pharmacist from Port Hedland (a predominantly mining town about 800km North of us)
Travelling on my own has never really bothered me...a good book and an iPod and I can be amused for hours. The flight from Carnarvon to Perth takes about two hours and from the Perth airport I got  taxi to my hotel in the Perth CBD.  I got in pretty late on the first night but room service and the mini-bar make it bearable!



The meeting is normally held on a Friday but this time the head offices didn't have a meeting room free for use so the meeting was held on a Wednesday.  The next flight back to Carnarvon however wasn't departing until 4pm on Thursday so I had a whole 24 hours in Perth to wile away!



The western streets of the CBD have undergone a face lift since I used to work in the area.  King St now has Gucci, Louis Vutton and a Tiffany & Co.  I am not a big fan of Tiffany's jewelery but it is a nice spot for a bit of window shopping!

Having not lived or worked in Perth now for almost ten years I can begin to enjoy it! I used to work in the mall parallel to this one in a pharmacy as an assistant.  It wasn't the best place for job satisfaction and I had to commute a 2 hour round trip each day and understandably the 'fun' of going to the city to shop was lost.  Coming back now for a quick trip a couple of times a year I really like to wander around the malls (looking like a real tourist I'm sure).  Both big department stores already had their Christmas decorations out... the older I get the more I like Christmas, the cooking required in the lead up, the decorating, the small traditions that are starting to become familiar... but more about that in a few months!

Flying out of Perth in daylight it really makes you realise what they mean by the words urban sprawl.  While the city is a pitiful collection of a dozen or so tall buildings when viewed from the air; the back to back quarter acre (and less!) blocks with homes are smashed  together for miles.  I understand that the 'suburbs' of Perth spread about 50km either direction.  Flying away always makes me happy to be getting out of there and back out into the country

Ahhh now THAT'S more like it! And that's all there is of Carnarvon.  And it suits me fine.

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