After my few lovely days in Singapore with perfect 30 degrees heat, I travelled overnight to Perth. When I arrived at the extremely unpleasant hour of 4.15am, the first thing that struck me was the cold, and this stayed with me for the duration of my time in WA! To most people from England, 18 or 19 degrees doesn't sound too bad, but for me, it was 10-15 degrees less than what I was used to. My body was so confused - why wasn't I sweating constantly anymore?! On my first day in Perth, I had to make a quick dash to the shops to stock up on jumpers. Horrible!
The second thing that struck me was the cost of everything. Again, if I'd come straight from England, it would have seemed reasonable to maybe a little expensive. But after living on 7 dollars a day in Cambodia, and now being barely able to afford a McDonalds for 7 dollars, it was horrendous! My money situation isn't the best at the moment, and that's putting it lightly. In other words, I'm broke, and being in this country is NOT helping!!
But now let's move on to the positives. The people, for a start. Everyone was so friendly! Wherever I was, bus stop or art gallery, someone would stop to have a little chat. It was lovely (and obviously a massive change from being in countries where this is just not possible). Their kindness was overwhelming as well - I stayed with couchsurfing hosts for the entirety of my time in WA, and I was put up in million dollar houses, given my own bedroom, fed, driven around, basically treated like an old friend. It was wonderful, I had such a good time and just wish I'd had more time in WA.
So, I spent my meagre 8 days in Perth, Fremantle, Hillarys (a Perth suburb where the million dollar house was) and the amazing Margaret river. Perth is a nice city, it has a great art gallery with lots of aboriginal art in, as well as lots of cafes and restaurants. Plus a Nando's, which was extremely exciting and which I enjoyed thoroughly on my last night with my wonderful CS host in Perth, Amy.
Fremantle was the sort of place that I could see myself calling home, mainly because it reminded me so much of Brighton, my favourite place in the UK. It had a great weekend market on when I was there, and the city had a chilled out vibe, with cafe's sprawling on the streets, competing with all the quirky alternative shops. My CS hosts for Fremantle and Hillary's were a Swiss/Irish couple who ended up in Hillary's catsitting for a friend, so I was lucky enough to spend 2 nights there with them in the gorgeous house by the harbour. They took me on one of the days to a park/ cemetary. Doesn't sound like the kind of place you would necessarily choose to go, but actually it was great as it was filled with kangaroos, literally hundreds of them. Being springtime as well, it meant that there were loads of joeys in their mother's pouches, with their little heads sticking out. We got to sit just a couple of metres away from them, it was such a great experience!
My next stop was staying with a couple in their 70's, Jack and Carroll. They were very much environmentalists, all about using sustainable energy and recycling, looking after the community garden and preserving Australia's wildflowers. On my first day in Margaret River, I went on a wine-tasting course day, as this is what the area is famous for. As soon as I touched down in Oz, I made the most of the things I missed in Asia - namely wine, cheese and salt and vinegar crisps! So, the wine day was perfect for me. We went to 3 wineries, a cheese factory, chocolate factory, liquor factory and a brewery, and tried 40 different wines during the day. As you can imagine, from starting at 10.30, everyone was a bit pissed by the end of the day! It was a bushtucker tour that I was on, so during the day we also got to try kangaroo (nice), emu (pretty bland), and a witchetty grub (absolutely VILE!!!!).
In the evening, I went back to Jack and Carroll's rather the worse for wear, and then went off to see a modern take on a Midsummer Night's Dream at the local theatre (Margaret River had a lot of arty things going on there, as well as being very much a close-knit community). None of us were particularly impressed by the show, but at least it added a touch of culture to my boozy day!
On my second day, I went into the nearby forest with Carroll, who was incredibly knowledgeable about the native plants and trees, naming most of them with both their common name and Latin name, and explaining to me which plant family they were in and how you can tell. To me, they all just looked like weird trees or pretty flowers so it was such an education! Plus, in Margaret River they had some unusual weeds - lillies and fresias being two! I personally thought they looked lovely, but apparently they were killing off the native plants so the locals weren't too happy about that.
I hope one day that I'll go back to WA with more time and more money, as it seemed like such a great place to explore, and there wasn't the drunken backpacker scene that's almost inescapable on the east coast. It was so refreshing to stay in houses rather than hostels and spend time with locals rather than travellers, in fact my whole time there was a highlight.
The second thing that struck me was the cost of everything. Again, if I'd come straight from England, it would have seemed reasonable to maybe a little expensive. But after living on 7 dollars a day in Cambodia, and now being barely able to afford a McDonalds for 7 dollars, it was horrendous! My money situation isn't the best at the moment, and that's putting it lightly. In other words, I'm broke, and being in this country is NOT helping!!
But now let's move on to the positives. The people, for a start. Everyone was so friendly! Wherever I was, bus stop or art gallery, someone would stop to have a little chat. It was lovely (and obviously a massive change from being in countries where this is just not possible). Their kindness was overwhelming as well - I stayed with couchsurfing hosts for the entirety of my time in WA, and I was put up in million dollar houses, given my own bedroom, fed, driven around, basically treated like an old friend. It was wonderful, I had such a good time and just wish I'd had more time in WA.
So, I spent my meagre 8 days in Perth, Fremantle, Hillarys (a Perth suburb where the million dollar house was) and the amazing Margaret river. Perth is a nice city, it has a great art gallery with lots of aboriginal art in, as well as lots of cafes and restaurants. Plus a Nando's, which was extremely exciting and which I enjoyed thoroughly on my last night with my wonderful CS host in Perth, Amy.
Fremantle was the sort of place that I could see myself calling home, mainly because it reminded me so much of Brighton, my favourite place in the UK. It had a great weekend market on when I was there, and the city had a chilled out vibe, with cafe's sprawling on the streets, competing with all the quirky alternative shops. My CS hosts for Fremantle and Hillary's were a Swiss/Irish couple who ended up in Hillary's catsitting for a friend, so I was lucky enough to spend 2 nights there with them in the gorgeous house by the harbour. They took me on one of the days to a park/ cemetary. Doesn't sound like the kind of place you would necessarily choose to go, but actually it was great as it was filled with kangaroos, literally hundreds of them. Being springtime as well, it meant that there were loads of joeys in their mother's pouches, with their little heads sticking out. We got to sit just a couple of metres away from them, it was such a great experience!
My next stop was staying with a couple in their 70's, Jack and Carroll. They were very much environmentalists, all about using sustainable energy and recycling, looking after the community garden and preserving Australia's wildflowers. On my first day in Margaret River, I went on a wine-tasting course day, as this is what the area is famous for. As soon as I touched down in Oz, I made the most of the things I missed in Asia - namely wine, cheese and salt and vinegar crisps! So, the wine day was perfect for me. We went to 3 wineries, a cheese factory, chocolate factory, liquor factory and a brewery, and tried 40 different wines during the day. As you can imagine, from starting at 10.30, everyone was a bit pissed by the end of the day! It was a bushtucker tour that I was on, so during the day we also got to try kangaroo (nice), emu (pretty bland), and a witchetty grub (absolutely VILE!!!!).
In the evening, I went back to Jack and Carroll's rather the worse for wear, and then went off to see a modern take on a Midsummer Night's Dream at the local theatre (Margaret River had a lot of arty things going on there, as well as being very much a close-knit community). None of us were particularly impressed by the show, but at least it added a touch of culture to my boozy day!
On my second day, I went into the nearby forest with Carroll, who was incredibly knowledgeable about the native plants and trees, naming most of them with both their common name and Latin name, and explaining to me which plant family they were in and how you can tell. To me, they all just looked like weird trees or pretty flowers so it was such an education! Plus, in Margaret River they had some unusual weeds - lillies and fresias being two! I personally thought they looked lovely, but apparently they were killing off the native plants so the locals weren't too happy about that.
I hope one day that I'll go back to WA with more time and more money, as it seemed like such a great place to explore, and there wasn't the drunken backpacker scene that's almost inescapable on the east coast. It was so refreshing to stay in houses rather than hostels and spend time with locals rather than travellers, in fact my whole time there was a highlight.
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