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Epic Gap Year Travel Adventures! - Stunning Photos and Articles! – This page is all about Perth, West Australia on our round the world trip.

Stop 2 - W. Australia > North Of Perth > PERTH

Perth City - West Australia
Gap Year Travel Journal

Text By Jo & Photos By Mike

(15th - 21st January) Perth - First visit
We have had a really chilled out start to our visit to the West Coast of Australia. We picked up the camper van on our first day but have been staying with Mark and Mel Hughes until last night - our first night on a campsite! Mark and Mel's hospitality has been so good that we couldn't leave them. We helped them move to a new house too, so now we feel like locals! Our first night in the van was fantastic - a comfy bed and loads of space compared to Bessie the Love Bus! We want to van-nap this one and bring it home. Mike has been windsurfing twice now - he is grinning from ear to ear and Jo is glad he is back to his old self again. Yesterday he met up with the guy he stayed here with 10 years ago and Jo had to listen to all the old stories again! And yes it is true that Mike existed on a meal called a "bucket of puss" a concoction of mashed potato, sweetcorn and tuna- it was legendary apparently! Whilst walking around the fishing port area we came head to head with a huge pelican. Mike fearlessly (?!) stood near to it whilst protecting his crown jewels whilst Jo cowered at a safe distance! We plan on heading up to Geraldton tomorrow for some serious windsurfing for Mike and camping in a dustbowl. Then we will be back in Perth to celebrate Australia Day with Mark and Mel. WE LOVE IT HERE!!!! Laid back Aussie life suits us both.

(1st - 12th March) Back to Perth again
Over several days we did lots of driving around the banks of the Swan River which runs from the coast at Fremantle where the port is up to the Central Business District (CBD) of Perth. It is a huge area and all the shores are lined with multi-million dollar mansions. There is plenty of access to the river wherever you go with lots of parks with shady picnic benches and barbecues and most amazingly toilets and showers – not like the UK where you can never find a public toilet block and if you do (especially in winter) it will be locked! Some great photos above showing the small Central Business District - these are the only skyscrapers in Perth! The whole area is so clean as well with lots of little sandy beaches. We spent a day doing the tourist circuit of Perth. We caught the boat from Freo up the Swan River to Perth where we got bird’s eye views of the huge mansions. We then did the 1.5 hour round trip on the tourist tram. This sounds nice and relaxing … and it is …. but we did it in 44 degree heat! The tram seats were plastic and we just sweated and sweated. When we finally got off our clothes were drenched and sticking to us – lovely! But having said that we did see the highlights of Perth. We went up the Swan Bells Tower (behind Jo and the fountains and swan) where they have housed the church bells donated by St Martin-in the fields in London to mark Australia’s bicentenary in 1988. (NB Lee that must have been when you were out here on Ark Royal?). These bells date back to the 14th century so are easily the oldest thing in Australia cause nothing much else dates back to any earlier than mid 1800’s. They rang in the New Year at Trafalgar Square for more than 275 years apparently. Jo also had a chance to get hold of the ropes and to ring the bells out over the city. We went up into King’s Park and saw some amazing views down over the river and the city. We got off on Hays Street, one of the two main shopping streets and had to hop from shop doorway to shop doorway on the shady side of the street to enjoy the blasts of air-conditioned cool air that met us each time! We went down London Court – a modern imitation of an old London street complete with tudor style shop frontages. We the caught the train back down to Freo again. The ship above was seen watching a sunset off Cottesloe beach and we believe it is a reproduction of The Endeavour.

(28th March - 1st April) Farewell to Perth
From Walpole we drove back up to Bunbury for an overnight stop and then back up to Perth with a lunch stop in Mandurah, seeing some more dolphins cruising by. We treated ourselves to three nights in a chalet with heating to recover from our cold spell and it was just what we needed! We did another cruise up the Swan River (with another wine tasting!) to Perth City. This time we had much more sensible temperatures than the 44 degrees on our last visit to Perth and actually managed to do more walking around. We went to King’s Park and spent a lovely afternoon admiring the views over the city and the river. We saw two weddings in progress here – how about you all come over here to join us for our wedding? – what a fab location! Don’t worry mum we haven’t got hitched yet – you’ll still get your day in your hat! We spent a lovely evening at point Walter watching the sunset behind the narrow spit of sand and spent a couple of evenings with Mark and Mel Hughes before we left. They kindly put us up for our last night and let us do all our washing and packing from their house too. Thanks so much guys for putting up with us – we really appreciated your wonderful hospitality. It was so great to see you in your new lives and we wish you both every success in your new ventures … and don’t forget … we’ll be back!

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FREEMANTLE CAMPING, Perth - Gap Year Travel Journal

SWAN RIVER, Perth - Gap Year Travel Journal

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