4 days in Perth, WA

Waiting to board our flight to Australia

The most isolated city in Australia and often more expensive for Australian’s to get to than destinations in Asia and the South Pacific Islands but being the closest Australian city to the UK, it is often the cheapest place for Britons to fly to in Australia. Deciding to make it our first stop on a 2-week trip to the country, we had just 4 nights in the city. So what was there to do?

Arriving early afternoon on our first day, we were jetlagged from the long flight and didn’t feel like doing any real sight-seeing. After checking into our pretty central Travelodge hotel, we made the effort to take the short walk to the main shopping area of the city to get our bearings a bit and grab a bite to eat at the first cafe we came to before walking back via a quick stop at a supermarket to stock up on a few essentials.

After a long overdue extended sleep, we were awake bright and early for our first full day in the city. We wandered down to Elizabeth Quay at Perth’s waterfront and decided to use the hop on/off tourist bus to see as much of the city as we could. We bought a combination bus ticket which included entrance to the Swan Bell Tower and the ferry to Fremantle then jumped onto the first bus of the day and set off.

The bus took us out towards Perth’s zoo, its stadium and a huge casino complex before returning to the CBD and stopping back at Elizabeth Quay for an extended break. We used that time to go up the Swan Bell Tower which offered views across the city and luckily, we’d conveniently timed our visit to coincide with the bells ringing out!

Back on the bus, we headed to the huge Kings Park and Botanic Gardens and spent the afternoon wandering through its grounds. The park’s treetop walk was a real highlight and there were beautiful views of the CBD area from many points around the park.

Back on the bus again, we were taken back into the CBD where we hopped off one last time for some late afternoon shopping in the city before walking back down to the river front for some pub grub and drinks in the evening.

For day 2 of our stay in Perth, we had booked a day trip to the Pinnacles Desert with Grayline Tours. Up early to board our coach, the first stop of the day was at Caversham Animal Sanctuary where we got to hang out with the kangaroos, wombats and koalas – always a fun way to spend an hour in Australia!

Then it was back on the coach to make our way to the fishing town of Cervantes where we toured a lobster farm – not something I particularly enjoyed , I wanted to set all the poor lobsters free – and had our provided picnic lunch overlooking the Indian Ocean, finding a bit of time to wander down to it’s white sand beach before it was time to depart.

The long coach journey then continued with our bus driver keeping us entertained by telling us stories and singing us traditional Australian songs until we finally reached the Pinnacles Desert.

The Pinnacles, part of Namburg National Park, are quite a bizarre sight. Thousands of pillars of limestone rising out of a bed of orange sand! Our guide led us around, pointing out some of the formations which had been named as they seemingly resemble people or animals and telling us some of the Indigenous stories about the area. We were then given free time to wander around ourselves which we chose to spend taking photos of each other popping out behind the stones!

Our final stop of the day was at the impressive white sand dunes of Lancelin. Here, we were provided with a wooden sand board and took it in turns to clamber to the top of the huge dunes – a task way more difficult and tiring than it looked but worth it for the views – and sand board down. Then we boarded a 4×4 vehicle for a fun ride across the dunes.

It was a long drive back to Perth and most of us slept on the coach but it had been a fun day and a good way to see a bit more of Western Australia than the city of Perth itself.

On our final full day in Perth, we walked back to Elizabeth Quay and boarded a ferry down Swan River to the town of Fremantle. The boat ride itself was an enjoyable way to spend an hour and we even saw dolphins swim alongside the boat. Once there, we spent a bit of time exploring the town before having fish and chips on the sea front. Instead of catching the boat back to Perth, we opted to catch a train to Cottesloe. Cottlesloe Station is just a short walk from its beautiful beach and we spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine from the golden sands and taking a dip in the Indian Ocean before catching the train back to Perth that evening.

We didn’t have much time in the city the next day as we had to make our way to the airport to catch a flight to Uluru so we took another walk down to Elizabeth Quay to walk along the riverfront then made our way back into the CBD for some last minute shopping. We had enjoyed our stay in the city of Perth and had ticked off most of the things on our to do list but we both wished we had one more day there so we could have visited the nearby Rottnest Island. Just another reason to return one day…