Perth International Airport is interesting in the respect that except for a nearby smallish military air base (Pearce) it has the only big runways for big airplanes for hundreds of miles around.  The really big  heavies inbound from the Middle East use Adelaide (over 1000 miles away) as an alternate at times.

 

The only nearby airport options are a few general aviation airports, none rated for a 737 size aircraft, one really small one (Rottnest - listen for it) on a little island about 20 miles offshore.  Beyond that there are some regional airports used by turboprops 250-350 miles away.   

 

A couple of days ago the summer tropical 110F air mass to the north collided with the 60-70F cool air mass from the south (where we live) and quickly created a line of very energetic thunderstorms that ultimately stretched north south over most of central Australia.  The line formed quickly and wreaked wind shear havoc over Perth, like 58 knots at 250 feet, and 25 knots of crosswind at the runway threshold, different direction, of course.  This led to a lot of missed approaches until - you guessed it - fuel gets low.

 

Attached is a screen shot of Virgin 697's track history.  He got a long hold, then missed on 21, got another hold, then missed on 06 and then the pucker factor went way up.

 

The link will provide about 30 minutes of ATC audio with some longish quiet periods.   It starts after Virgin 697 has made a lot of turns in holding and missed the first approach to 21.  Listen and then imagine what is being thought but unspoken.