Well, this week I went to Perth for 3 days. Perth is way over on the west coast of Aus

I left here on Monday night so that I could be ready to attend the annual meeting of the Australasian Genetic Alliance, of which I am my Organisations representative. The meeting went well, with a list of tasks developed for the next year. After that here was time to return to the hotel for a shower and change and then I met up with one of my colleagues and we caught the ferry over to South Perth where we were meeting everyone at the Incontro restaurant for dinner.

What a fantastic spot…the view was wonderful, as the sun went down we watched the lights come on in the city (dang , I didn’t have my camera, but the links should give you an idea ). We all had a very nice dinner and plenty of wine and good conversation before heading back to the hotel.

Wednesday we first of all went to the Telethon Institute of Child Health Research for a tour of their facilities which was very interesting. They do some very good research…we had a look at some dust mites that are part of an asthma study…creepy fat little bugs they are .

After lunch it was off to the University of Western Australia. The campus is very impressive with lovely old buildings and beautiful gardens. We were there to attend a symposium on Involving People in Research. The afternoons speakers were very impressive and interesting and who set the scene for the next days discussions about how to involve consumers in all areas of health research projects. The afternoon finished off with finger food, drinks and networking at sundown.

We met up with a couple of mums who have daughters with Rett Syndrome who had participated in recent research and proceeded to dinner in the city afterwards. Another good dinner with good wine and conversation followed. When we got back to our hotel our New Zealand colleague, John, was felling very sociable so we stopped at the bar to chat with a Scottish couple who were visiting Aus for their 21st wedding anniversary and wound down the evening over a couple more glasses of wine.

Thursday morning was an early start for the second day of the Symposium. Even though we had a late night the speakers kept us from falling asleep and the sessions went by quite quickly. Unfortunately we had to miss the wind up to catch our planes back, one of us with only minutes to spare……run Dianne!!

I came home with a bag full of publications and things and now have the task of writing up reports on my visit. I got home at 11pm on Thursday night and had to front up to work on Friday. I was absolutely tired out by Friday night.

Perth is a lovely city and I think I would go back there for a holiday if I could. We didn’t get time to do much site seeing, so next time it’s to the beach I will go.