Western Austraila - Perth

Need some sleep............

On paper, the flight from J'burg to Perth was good. We left SA at 16:30 and landed 08:00. However, the flight is only 6 hrs, and the time difference 8 hrs. And the flight was bad - the TV was a loop of the "Cars" movie (kids cartoon), food was dodgy, and not much room to sleep in. In short, don't fly with South African Airways!!!

As we say above, we landed about 8am, which is really 12am to us. To try and minimise the jet lag we decided to stay up all day, and get an early night and sleep in tomorrow.

We checked into Nomads Underground Backpackers, which wasn't a great choice. Its the largest hostel in Perth, so lacks a personal edge, and it was full of youngsters just looking to get drunk - similar to a uni halls of res. Still, we had a decent room with a TV and fridge, and it was on the ground floor which was a bonus with our backpacks ;)

So, the first day was pretty much finding our feet and exploring Perth CBD. Zombified, we headed out and were immediately impressed. We walked down the main drag (Newcastle St & Aberdeen St) with the pubs, clubs and restaurants on, which is 2 mins from the hostel - great;) This is where we saw our first Oz wildlife - some very colourful lorikeets chirping in the trees.

The train station is 5 mins away, and then the shops begin. Its about 6 blocks, pedestrianised, of solid shops, which includes the cute London St, and the sky rise office blocks. It seems a surprising small CBD for such a large city.

We sat a cafe, for some lunch and to people watch, when we saw some interesting locals. Evelyn said "looks like there's a deal going down over there. Yep, definitely handing over a package". Then the police badge came out, and a few more undercover cops went over...very interesting viewing for our first day in Perth! But it all went down quietly and not much fuss was made. The cops were pretty good.

In terms of touristy stuff, we went to the Perth Mint to see some gold pouring, and learnt some interesting facts about the yellow stuff - its melts at 1100 degrees; it cool enough to touch within 2 mins; the schooners which hold the melted gold are recycled after 2 weeks of use and $1000's in gold are extracted from them. They reckon that there is $10m's worth of gold in the walls. If Marc was worth his weight in gold, then he'd be $1.9m, Evelyn would be $1.2m!

After, we jumped on the citi-cat - a free bus service which does a circuit of the CBD. It took us to the stunning Kings Park, which has great views of the city and the river. To get up there, you need to climb Jacobs Ladder - it has 242 steps, and the people of Perth come here often to walk/run up and down these steps to keep fit. Psychos!!



Kings Park has lovely gardens for walking around or just lounging. We sat down by a lake for 2 mins, and closed our eyes briefly and with our jet lag, and were virtually asleep in seconds ;) To try and keep us awake, we had an ice cream, and watched the parrots.



The main focus of the park is it's war memorial and ever burning flame lit by Queen Elizabeth. All the trees in the park have been planted in the name of ex-servicemen who lost their lives whilst fighting for the Australian Forces and it's quite sad to see how young most of these men died at.



The next few days were fairly relaxed. We spent a day at Cottlesloe beach, which is a really nice beach to lazy on, and walk along.

Being in Perth was seeming like the beginning of our travels, more so for Evelyn as SA is home. Oz is a complete unknown to us and we are now living completely out of backpacks and hostels facilities. Unlike in SA, we don't know anyone, so we begin our socialising. Its a shame we are at this hostel though, as we strike up conversations with people, most seem like idiots!!

Our first night out started at Mustangs where they have a different type of band on each night, the night we went there they had a swing band on. Evelyn really enjoyed it as there were two groups (from Perth & Freemantle) that actually go to classes during the week and get together on Fridays and dance. It's amazing to see as you feel like you've stepped back in time. After this we ended up at Black Bettys - the hostel was offering free beer for 2 hours and entrance to the club in return for $12, so seemed like a bargain (though Evelyn doesn't really like beer, she managed okay!!). There was a decent cover band playing, so we pulled a few moves on the dance floor ;)

One of the best things about Perth is the number of pubs in a relatively small space, and most of them have live music - which is great as we love seeing bands play.