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Published: September 16th 2007
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Hi again,
We made it to Perth fine, got a great tailwind from Dubai airport and landed just before 5pm in rainy Perth. Blowing a gale and spitting we opted for a taxi rather than mess about with the buses. (True backpackers we are not- just yet!)
Wednesday night was a complete write-off, however the hostel seemed pretty cool with plenty of people sitting around with beers etc. By 8pm we were in bed.
Thursday our first day in Perth city, we woke up raring to go. Greay and overcast we headed in the direction of the city centre in search of food. We spent the best part of the morning wandering around the city shopping malls and arcades and even checked out Perth's own Bell Tower (....shit) which was very.......noisy. It's hard to describe the city centre, kind of like a crap version of birmingham but the size of solihull. Imagine if you will someone decided to buy up all of birmingham and expand the Pallisades shopping experience out over the city. You get the picture.
There were some lovely little side streets though with designer boutiques and posh nosh places. Beers were a bit too
pricey though so after lunch (a lovely chinese take-away eaten on the grass outside,
St Martins Place , "everyone's doing it daaaaarling") we headed out of the city up towards Kings Park.
Kings Park is to the West of the city, overlooking it and the swan river. Bit of a trek to get up to it but def well worth it. The park is divided up into loads of sections, water garden, japanese gardens, botanic, aboriginal art....you get the picture.
There were runners and cyclists everywhere. It reminded me (adam) of a park that you might see out in America or Japan maybe. Tres cool.
Here we checked out the views, of course, and the war memorials and we went on a tree-top walk. There was also a picnic place near the top which had public gas barbecues which were free to use. We planned to come back to the park the next day with something to cook up and a beer and watch dusk settle (or something equally corny).
Back to the hostel and freshened up before going out for dinner in the "trendy Northbridge area" - 5 mins walk away.
Northbridge is where the
nightlife is based in the city. Good fun and seemed to be very busy. After dinner we ended up in a bar called Universal and there was a live Jazz Band on, drums, bass, sax, keyboard and singer. Great fun, made all the more so by the drunken work party which were taking to the dance floor at the start of every song.
That night the rest of the hostel stayed up quite late shouting about poo!?! Weird Australian types. So not the best night's sleep. When we did get up it was quite late and raining outside. Damnit!!! After running down the road we found some umbrellas and headed out to Subiaco which is a kind of suburb of Perth although it is called Subiaco City. We went to visit the famous weekend "markets". Imagine the markets outside The Oasis in brum and make it a hell of a lot smaller and crapper and that was about that.
As it was kind of on/off raining we headed back into the city and skipped Kings Park for lunch. After much moaning Maria let me have a coffee and cake. Although we had to go to a Swedish
Cafe to buy it! LOL! The only person in perth squealing everytime she sees this "Miss Mauds" place which are about as common as Gregs back home. Good cakes though!
We wandered about a lot and finally decided to head out of Perth a bit to a little island in the hope of seeing some wildlife. We were just too late to catch the WACA tour. Maybe next time. So, after a pleasent stroll through Perth and some dodgy road crossing we crossed the bridge to an Island/Nature reserve halfway across the Swan river, to the East of the city.
We had been told that the kangaroos come out at dusk to feed and if we were very very very lucky we might catch a glimpse of one. Well we caught slightly more than a glimpse.
5 or 6 of the little fellas bouncing through the undergrowth right next to us, so we had to go and see how close we could get. They were very inquisitive and one of them seemed to like Maria quite a bit before they all hopped away. A very surreal experience as even though it was a nature reserve we got the
feeling that not many people ventured out there. The roos were clearly not that used to humans as when they first saw us they hopped for cover.
Really really nice just as the sun was setting. The pictures really don't do it justice as we had camera problems but def a great end to the day.
We went to the cinema that night after having some lovely sushi.
I had a good time in Perth but I wouldn't reccommend it as a holiday destination really. There are parts that are fantastic like the park and I imagine when it's warmer the river is a lot nicer. Give it 20 years and the shopping experience might be a bit better too. a pretty good start to the trip though overall.
Maria agrees.
Hope everyone is ok back home. Byeeeeeeeeeeee xxx
Well, since we wrote that we didnĀ“t upload it. Now were in an internet cafe where the kezboard is a little messed up so trz and pick zour waz through this as best zou can. We have been over to fremantle which was just about half an hour on the train. But now we are back
in Perth.
Freo is Perth's port and is kind of like Newquay...sort of.
we could tell Freo was very cool as soon as we stepped off the train. Not going to bore you too much with details but the hostel was very young and we even met a guy from Halesowen!
we got our first taste of Australian seafood and watched the Oz vs Wales rugby game with a very ni ce caraffe of wine. Just before we left freo we went to the South fremantle oval and watched a local under 11s side playing ozzy rules football against some other team, while we ate our breakfast fresh from the food markets. all the locals were getting well into it. With a few more of them I reckon they couldve put the Villa supporters to shame.
anyway, we have finally got some photos up to show you so we are gonna shove these up and then get off to a bar to catch the Portugal GP. A tenner says Stoner wins again.
Hope you can all find the time to mail us soon. Our next entry should be from quite a different perspective.
Love
xxxxx
Just tried uploading the photos and it's taking ages and this shit aint free ya'know! We'll get on it asap 😊
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Noel
non-member comment
Where are all your comments?
Well hello. Just thought I would start off the comments. Nice to here you're safe and enjoying yourselves. Can't believe Adam managed a whole page before mentioning bikes! Much love. xNx