Perth WA, Australia

I am currently in Perth, Western Australia and checked in the local hostel yesterday. As Perth is currently very busy, I was unable to find some cheap accommodation the day before. In the end, the next cheapest, believe it our not, was at the 5-star Hilton hotel, which was offering a Friday night special at a very low rate on a very good website www.wotif.com. So quite a big change yesterday - from 5-star hotel to budget hostel. It is fine, although I must say that I very much enjoyed my stay at the Hilton in terms of sleeping. On the other hand, the YHA (youth hostel australia) is much more down to earth and there is much more interaction with other people, but the sleeping is much less with several people in one room. Anyway, this is going to be my home for just over a week, as I am waiting for my campervan to become available, and a special van it is! Check out www.wickedcampers.com.au on the web. It comes with everything included, so should be good. Will tell you all about it when I am on the road. I have never done such a road trip before, so am excited about it. Should be okay though, another new experience!

I rented a bicycle as another means of transportation for checking out the city. They have an excellent city center bus system which is free to use. You can just hop on and off where you like along the route, e.g. to Northbridge, an area just north of the Perth City train station where you can find lots of bars and restaurants. I used that system for going out and having some diner. But today I went on a cycle tour, from the city to the City Beach to be exact. As only a few Ozzies cycle, there are few dedicated bicycle pathways. To overcome that, you are allowed to bike on the street, these dedicated pathways, on shared pedestrian & bicycle pathways and even just on the pedestrian footpath. Can you imagine that being able to do in Amsterdam? People would go crazy and very angry. Another thing you need to do down here is where a helmet, or risk a AU$ 50 fine. With the strong sunshine, it is actually comfortable to wear one, so no complaints there.

Today I went on a suggested cycling tour, the so-called City to Beach tour. It would take me from the Perth City train station all the way to the west, to the City Beach. There are various beaches, but this one is the closest. As it was another lovely day with lots of sunshine and temperature around 30 C, it was great to do this tour. Soon after departure, I found myself in some lovely suburbs of western Perth, with low traffic and lots of green and beautiful houses. There are good markings for the route and the Ozzies are very cautious about traffic, e.g. everywhere there are signs like “end” for end of the pathway when you cross a road, with another sign marking the beginning of it. Another example are the stickers on the traffic lights for pedestrians. They state that you should not cross when the light is red, cross with green but be very cautious and do not start to cross when the red light is blinking. I must say, there is quite a bit of traffic, but not as aggressive as it sometimes can be in NL.

The beach itself was very nice with a nice breeze coming from the sea. I decided not to stay too long and go back, probably jumping on the bus or train if I did not want to cycle all the way back. Not having cycled for 6 months much, does have an impact on my cycle fitness! ;-) I rode the same route back and came through the suburb of Subiaco. It is also the location of the local Australian Football teams. Apparently, this day a big game was on were Freemantle (port of Perth) was playing Richmond.

I decided to grasp this unique opportunity to see this typical Australia-only sport and bought a ticket. I found myself surrounded by season ticket holders of Freemantle. Luckily I was wearing a purple T-shirt, the same colours as their team. Seriously, they were quite fanatic, but without any verbal abuse. Actually, one of them was spoken to when he used the ‘b$st$rd’ word when shouting at a player, not to use strong language and he apologized! Can you imagine that happening in the football stadium back in Europe? However, I could appreciate his frustration as his team lost almost with double figures, even though there had been considered to be favorite for this game. I am not going to explain the rules, as I hardly know them myself, but enough to understand the scoring.

On Monday, I went fun diving at Rottnest Island, ‘Rotto’ as it is called locally, just off the coast. I had booked 2 fun dives and had a great time. There were few people on the boat and the water was a bit warmer again, around 24 C. I made all sorts of pictures which you can check out by clicking the picture below.

Fun diving @ Rottnest Island, WA

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I had rented the bike for another day and decided to take a tour around the Swan river, going from the city center, along the south bank, all the way around to the west side of the city center. As it was again a lovely day, it was a really relaxing ride along the banks of the river Swan. The river was named by the Dutch, William de Vlamingh, who were one of the first westerners to arrive here when crossing from ‘Kaap de Goede Hoop’ (South Africa) due West to short-cut the route the East-Indies (Indonesia). That is why you find some Dutch name around, like Cape Leeuwin and the river Swan. One of the parks on the South bank is an heritage park, with all sorts of historical items, such as a statue of William - revealed by Willem-Alexander van Oranje, back in 1997.


I also went to the Mint of Perth, one of the leading Mints in the world regarding processing precious metals. They have all sorts of jewelry there, but I was much more interested in seeing the gold nuggets and the story behind them. These guys in the old days really suffered some hardship in search of fortune and only a few succeeded. There was also a demonstration of gold melting and pouring with explanation of the unique characteristics of gold, e.g. the gold bar being poured was the same one for over 10 years, every day being melted, poured and cooled down without the gold loosing any of its uniqueness. This is unlike e.g. metal which can only be processed as such a couple of times before changing its characteristics.

Last night and today it is raining since a long while in Perth. The Southwest already had lots of rain showers and still have, but Perth had been dry until last night. I am just chillin’ out and waiting for my camper van to become avaiable! So for now, relax, don’t stress and enjoy the start of Spring in the Northern hemisphere! ;-)

see’ya, mates!