Welcome to Perth, the Capital of the West, Australia

I decided this week to do a lucky dip as I couldn’t decide what place to talk about next. The winner this week is a city that is in my home country, Perth, Australia. I only just visited this city for the first time back in October 2017. I managed to end up going there twice that month with my good friend Gemma. Why not check out her blog here:

https://steemit.com/@vegoutt-travel

Gemma and I ready to fly.

As I had to come back to Australia from Thailand for six weeks to get my visa sorted to be able to move to the UK to work, it gave me the perfect opportunity to tag along with Gemma, who is a flight attendant on her overnight flights while I was back. The first trip was only overnight, with a full day of sightseeing as we were on the red eye. The second time however was for two nights and again catching the red eye we got two days of sight seeing in. As Gemma and I are very go go go type of travellers, we managed to see quite a bit. Although there are still many places I’d still like to see such as the Margret river and Rottenest Island, I thoroughly enjoyed visiting my first place on the Western Coast of my native home.

Perth is the capital city of Western Australia, the largest (by land) state/territory of Australia. It is located on the south western coast of Australia and is the fourth most populous city. Captain James Stirling was the founding father in 1829 and back then became the administrative centre for the Swan River Colony. The original owners of the land were known as the Noongar people, one of many subdivisions of the indigenous Australians. These people were well known as hunters and gatherers and the area which now is known as Perth was originally called Boorloo. On the 10th of January 1697 the first documented sightings from foreign sailers was made, while subsequent visits were made between 1697 and 1829, these Europeans deemed the place as unsuitable for settlement due to it being inhospitable for agricultural development. Since then Perth has become the thriving capital of the west.

On my first trip to Perth, Gemma and I visited a beautiful park situated on top of a hill called Kings Park. As I had managed to not have shoes, do not ask me how, Gemma decided to give me her shoes and she hiked in her high heels. Mind you she only made it half way up before deciding that her feet hurt and I walked bare foot while I gave her shoes back. We did manage to buy a pair of thongs at a shop later on. What I really loved about this park was the view. The view of the city from the top is just beautiful. There was also a lovely high bridge we walked over while enjoying and spotting the many birds in particular the adult ducks with their little ducklings.

Gemma and I at King’s Park with The city in the background.

The view from King’s Park

In the afternoon, as Gemma has been to Perth many times she decided to show me around the streets. We went for a walk along the river and walked around the shops (and brought some thongs). We then ended up in London Court. Now as I have been to London before, I can certainly say that it was not like London at all! It was 10 times hotter, smaller and there were blue skies everywhere. Mind you, the architecture, with its Tudor style buildings did portray a bit of a European feel. This attraction would have been better if it weren’t so small. Never the less I did find it very pretty and is a good place to go if you want to experience something different.

Gemma and I in London Court

The enterance to London Court

London Court

On our second trip back we visited my favourite place that I have been to in Perth so far, Fremantle. While I had heard from many family members and friends that it’s the place to go to, as I was on the train I realised I was in the middle of an ugly looking port and thought how disappointing. However, I was proven wrong. Once you got out of the station and headed towards the beach you started walking along streets with heritage listed buildings from when the first convicts arrived. The colonial style buildings, along side the ‘Round House’ building which was situated on the beach gave off an historical feel. As a lover of the beach and water We enjoyed taking a short walk along the coast while enjoying not only the different rock formations but some calamari and chips at one of the local restaurants on the beach front. We then went and sat in the park for a few hours chatting while soaking up the ambience. To be honest I was quite surprised at how beautiful it was.

Freemantle streets

Freemantle buildings

Gemma and I in Freemantle

The ‘Round House’

On the last day we both decided to stay in the hotel as not only were we up till the early hours chatting/writing blogs, we didn’t end up waking up until 1pm. I usually wouldn’t do this on such a short trip but I needed to save for my big move to the UK and Gemma needed to be awake to work our red eye flight back home to Brisbane. And lets be honest I, wouldn’t be able to sleep on the plane even if I had some form of general anaesthetic. We definitely enjoyed getting room service while I decided to try on her flight attendant uniform. Do not ask me why.

Perth is usually an overlooked destination for both domestic and international travellers. I believe this is because of its isolated location away from the 3 larger cities which reside on the east coast, a good five hour flight away. This therefore means an increase in flight price and time for domestic travellers. Why not make Perth one of your stop over destinations, particularly if you are coming from Europe or Asia as many airlines have connecting flights from the city to the east coast. While I haven’t spent much time in Perth, I can assure that you will not be disappointed. There are definitely many other attractions and places close by that I would like to go back and see one day.