Delights of Perth, Western Australia

After an outstanding day on Rottnest Island with the quokkas, we took time out to enjoy some relaxed days in Perth. We very much liked Perth, the relaxed feel of the city, how easy it was to get about and enjoyed the hospitality of some local friends who cooked up a particularly impressive barbeque, including salads from the Matthew Hayden cookery book – hard to imagine a more quintessentially Australian experience.

Kings Park

Kings Park sits high on a plateau overlooking Perth Water and much of central Perth itself. It houses the state and many other war memorials, but also a wide range of activities. We took the free CAT bus to the north eastern end of the park in order to explore this large green space. One of the first things we saw as we approached the park boundary was the Ivey Watson playpark, so naturally we had to spend a good amount of time there and at the adjacent Koorak Cafe.

Dragging the kids away from the first playpark we saw, we made our way over to something we had been curious about – the Rio Tinto Naturescape. Now, the mining industry comes in for a lot of often justified stick, but two things are clear – much of Perth’s economy centres on mining, and the Naturescape is a triumph. We could have spent longer there had we not dawdled earlier in the day. The kids loved climbing towers, exploring tunnels and generally getting into nature (which we know from experience is their happy place so far on this trip). Our overwhelmingly positive memories are only tempered by the fact we lost Jim’s folding water bottled here. Sad times.

Another excellent area in Kings Park was the May Drive Parkland, with a prehistorical theme which along with play equipment is ready to educate on Australia’s unique prehistory, with Lycopod island, a boardwalk over replica stromatolites, and models of extinct animals such as the Australian Muttaburrasaurus dinosaur, the Diptotodon, (the largest marsupial to ever live and part of the infamous Australian megafauna), and a Phytosaur which despite not being related, look just like a huge crocodile. In addition, and most excitingly of all, the park also boasts an actual, real life Wollemi Pine tree!

It is fair to say we didn’t scratch the surface of what’s on offer in Kings Park. There was certainly another day trip in it if we could have planned it in, including visiting the Botanical Gardens within the park.

Jim, ever the athlete (as friends will know), had a good morning run our around King’s park. The park is a great place for this (as is Perth in general with its light traffic and paved paths), though bear in mind the park sits on a plateau above the city so there were more hills than Jim expected (phew). If any additional motivation is needed to keep running, the memorials to the sacrifice of Australia’s fallen war heroes placed every five metres along the road certainly provide it.

Shrimp on the barbie

Alongside kangaroos, Kylie Minogue and hats with corks, one of the other defining features of Australia for us was the barbecue. So essential is the barbecue to the Aussie psyche that local authorities provide communal barbecues at most parks and other open spaces. What a great thing. And very useful for us travellers with no kitchen in some places or patchy facilities in others. We have found the cost of living notably high in Australia. So to be able to buy a pack of sausages or whatever and whisk up a meal has been not just a treat but a saviour for the budget.

Our new bbq kit is simple comprising a little oil, a spatula, a scourer and oven cleaner (as it is good manners to clean it for the next guest) – this alongside the little pen knife (for cutting cheese etc), sporks and fold-flat food box (with handy lid / plate) that we were already packing.

Our first aussie bbq experience was at the Wellington Square (Moort-ak Waadiny)park in east Perth a couple of blocks from where we stayed. This is a phenomenal playpark with several different areas including a water play area, a couple of basketball hoops, parkour areas, skate / bmx etc. – hours and hours of fun. Consistently so far in Australia we have found really good playgrounds wherever we have been, although it has to be said this one, our first, has set the bar very high indeed. The vast majority seem to have water fountains and a lot of those have water bottle filler taps, alongside the ubiquitous grilling facilities.

Perth Cultural Centre

On a slightly blustery morning, we decided to explore some indoor opportunities at the State Library of Western Australia and the WA Museum Boola Bardip. These, along with art galleries, a theatre and the state records office are conveniently located in the Perth Cultural Centre, very close to the central railway station. Starting at the library, we learnt about Australian Children’s author Leigh Hobbs and how to draw his character Mr Chicken before lounging about reading free books and getting inspiration for what to download to our kindles. We then headed to the excellent WA museum, which reopened in 2020 following an extensive renovation. Highlights included the huge collection of meteorites – the museum has over 14000 in total! And the wildlife gallery showing the vast range of flora and fauna in Australia. We followed a code breakers trail around the museum which involved solving clues to save a precious museum treasure being stolen by a shadowy criminal organisation which tested our code cracking and observation skills and was a lot of fun.

How we did it

We flew into Perth from Indonesia. We paid 45 AUD on the meter for the taxi ride. The internet suggested this ride would have been cheaper, closer to the price of a bus ticket for foue, and in retrospect, knowing what we now do of the bus network, we would certainly have taken the bus or the airport line train into town.

Perth has a good bus network, some of which are free to use – just jump on and off. The free routes are the Central Area Transit (CAT) routes, that run five routes in Perth and one around Freemantle, each denoted by colours e.g. Red CAT, Purple CAT etc. These quickly became our first choice for getting in and out of the CBD from our digs in east Perth, and also out towards King’s Park.

Transperth also offers paid Dayrider and FamilyRider tickets which provide bottomless travel on the local trains and buses for the whole day. These will obviously make sense on certain days depending where you want to go and the routes you want to take. We used these on the day we went to Freemantle as they covered the train out there as well as the buses we needed to see friends in the Nedlands suburb in the evening, and also used a FamilyRider for off-peak weekend trip out to the airport on the train.

Where would we be without wifi? (lost). Usefully the city of Perth has stood up a free wifi network covering the main shopping areas, playparks etc. This proved very handy as we tend to only purchase one local SIM for cellular data.