Lets be honest, we probably wouldn't have had Perth (or any of Western Australia) on our itinerary if it wasn't for the direct Heathrow to Perth Qantas flight.

That would have been a real shame — Perth is great!

Perth gets 3,200 hours of sun a year — an average of more than 8 hours a day!

There's great food and drink too. Just round the corner from our hotel was La Veen which was so good we went back again!

On Monday, rather than the grind of the commute, we went North — up the Indian Ocean coast of WA.

We went to Caversham Wildlife Park:

Will made some new friends...

We had lunch at a vineyard on the Swan River;

Went up to the Pinnacles at the Nambung National Park;

And finally went sandboarding in Lancelin:

In short — WA is great, and there's far more we could have done if we were here for longer!

This is not the longest flight in the world — but at 16h 35m it comes pretty close!

We were incredibly fortunate that we got to kick off our honeymoon in style with a stint in business class and the joy of Australian hospitality.

Seriously though — this was something else. It began when we were picked up by our chauffeur (!!) on Saturday morning and taken to the airport.

And then there was the lounge... where we got to see South Africa teach Eddie Jones an important lesson!

And enjoy a nice brunch

And some great gin too!

Eventually, though, we needed to go and board our plane...

The experience was something else... both the service and the food!

The bed was remarkably comfy, though we both struggled a bit trying to persuade our bodies to sleep (and stay asleep) at 3pm UK time.

We actually get back on QF10 again to do the Perth to Melbourne segment — a much shorter 3h 30m. This was definitely the nicest way to travel for 16ish hours, and far easier than stopping off on the way. Also, it turns out that Perth is great!

Following our wedding we went to Ghent!

Really easy to get to (Eurostar to Brussels followed by a 30 min Belgian train) and absolutely charming.

It also had the benefit of being really sunny and precisely the sort of break we needed.

My highlight was the audio tour at the Gravensteen – it was essentially an adult version of Horrible Histories!

We also ate at Vrijmoed – the food was lovely, although the service was a bit slow. We wondered if it was a language thing.

On 22 June 2019, we were married at Eltham Palace in Greenwich, Southeast London.