First Impressions-Perfect Perth

It really is amazing to me that I am sitting in Perth, Australia. Just amazing. Why did we not go to Darwin??? We were ahead of ourselves and the wet season has not finished. Simply that.



Perth is a city but quite small by our standards. It is bright, sunny, new and spacious. It seemed so devoid of people that it was like walking in a virtual city, at first, even the cars were quiet. Wierd. It has malls. a river and a nearby beach. I cannot fault it in looks but we searched for a spirit. That was hard. We went into a pub ob Friday at about 5pm and it was busy with people celebrating the end of their working week. God, it was noisy. Not spirited, just noisy.



We caught the airport shuttle into town which was qwerky. It cost about six pounds. Shockingly expensive after asia!!The driver whittered on, waited until he was full and had to get off to run around and open the doors every time someone wanted to get off. Out hostel, the Barracks, was full! It looked grubby too. We walked around the town and Northbridge but the backpackers were all full. The sun was searing my skin and I was weary. One had a space in room 9. We booked 2 nights with relief. We went up to the room. It contained a double bed with dirty bedlinen, a pile of rubbish in a plastic bag and a full bin. We went down and asked for our money back. The young girl on the desk looked surprised but she did give us our money back. We trapsed to a few more. Lee left me in one hostel that offered a double bed in a room with two single men!!! He came back a short time later having got us a double room for $65 (2.2 to the pound) a night!!! More shocks, but relief too. There was a pool too. There was a lounge, huge kitchen, an outside seating area, a laundry and clothes line, everything we needed. Our room was like a uni students room with a shower and sink. The loo was next door. It looked clean too!We dumped our bags and went out to explore at about 7pm only to find the town closed down. We were bewildered and headed back to the hostel. There was a bottle shop, liquor store, and an arcade with a supermarket and kebab shop in it. We had a look around the supermarket pricing things, shared a kebab between us and bought a few beers from the bottle shop, for some extortionate price. It was quiet that night and we slept like logs. We had arrived in Australia.

During the next few days we explored the town on the fabulous free buses. The red one ran from across the road. We walked down by the river, had a look at the shops, bought our sim card and a phone-home card and generally bedded in. We trekked around the hostels and travel shops to look at the van boards. We viewed three, and bought one. The downside was that the girls were not going back to Germany until the 25th, they wanted to go off to Esperance for their last two weeks. We agreed and off they went. We went off to Freemantle in our hired car after booking out on the Monday.



Lee went off to hire a car to transport us to the south of Perth. It cost about 7.50 a day for 7 days. We chucked our three bags ito the boot and off we went.



We headed to Fremantle village along the Sterling Highway. It was a coastal run and we could see all the building developments. We viewed the three sites south of Freemantle and chose the last, one of the 'Big 4' camp sites that are superbly run, but quite expensive. We were not ready to camp as we did not have the right equipment and did not want to buy stuff until we had had a good look at the contents of the van, to see what we needed.



We have now spent one week in a deluxe chalet at Woodman Point. It has a lounge and dining area, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a verandah. It seems so normal to have a car parked on the driveway. We went shopping at Woolworths, which is a supermarket out here. Back to normal eating, no rice or noodle! Bacon, milk, cheese, bread with no sugar in it! YYYEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Lee is cooking, without a grill though, and, on gas. Trauma! I have helped too. I am now doing all our washing and ironing!!! Hmmmm!!!!



We went to Rockingham via the coast road. It was clean and quiet like Perth. There were not many people but those that we saw were so relaxed. What a fabulous beach. Endless. Nothing on it. Just white sand!!! The esplanade was edged by a grassy area that had shaded, benched areas and changing rooms. The bike path ran for miles. I took my first dip in Aussie waters, with a big grin and cheer. I did not see the jellyfish until I got out. Two see-through blobs of raw egg size lay on the water line. Yuck! With the heat I was dry in 10 minutes. We went off to the city shopping mall. We just wanted to look. We tried fish and chips between us. Not bad. Rockingham was a lovely little seaside town. I would recommend it.



The next trip out, on Thursday, took us a bit further down the coast, to Mandurah. Again this was a small town on an estuary. It had parkland and a few small shops. Most of the buildings were single storey. We sampled the local fish and chips. The best so far! We meandered around the local shops and Lee decided to go into a local hair dressers and get his hair cut short. We both had ourselves restored after the disaster of our Thailand haircuts!! On the way back I noticed that there were whole estates of bungalows. It was clean, quiet and well spread out, giving a feeling of space and light. The sky seems always to be a rich blue with some pure white clouds and, of course, sun. Again, there did not seem to be many people.



On Sunday we drove back towards Perth where we could observe Aussies at play, in the surf of Cottesloe Beach. We parked, with no charges, and took our folding chairs down to a near empty beach where we could look at the surfers, of all ages, having fun waiting for the incoming tide.

We joked with some guys, who came past carrying a canoe, that we looked very English sitting thjere in our chairs, they asked whether we had a flask of tea too! The answer was no!



Later, we moved about a mile down the road to the main town area. There were loads of people in the water, at the water line, sitting on the grass and benches. No-one was intruding on anyone else. It was fabulous. There was no litter or shouting. People were walking to the bins to dump their rubbish. The sun shone, the breeze cooled us. It was a glorious beach, town and day. We saw something of how it all worked out here. Interesting. Perth is gaining more points every day.



This week we plan to get the bus to Fremantle and have a look around, then, later in the week get the boat out to Rottnest Island. No cars are allowed. We may have a bike or take a tour.



In seven days the van should be ours and we will head south to view more of western Australia; Bunbury, the southern tip where the two great oceans meet, Albany and Esperance, before we attempt the four day drive across the great Nullabor Pain to Adelaide. It is both exciting and daunting;the distances, the animals, how much we don't know, but we have made it this far so we will make it in our own way no-doubt.