Perth, Australia is one of the many cities in the world that I don’t know a lot about. When we arrived at the airport I didn’t really know what we were going to see there. We walked out of the arrivals door and got a chicken Caesar wrap because we were ravenous and my dad walked over to the car rental place and dealt with our Hertz car. We were actually staying in a town called Fremantle, which is a little north of Perth. On the drive to our Airbnb, I immediately (and accidentally) fell asleep in the car. We got to the house and I collapsed onto the bed, exhausted (even after my brief car nap).
I woke up and took a swim in the pool out-back. After a refreshing shower I started my day which mostly consisted of looking around town, seeing the main old street and walking at the beach, and then, once again I went to glorious sleep.
The next day, after I did my morning usual – a swim in the pool and a shower – we got in our sporty Holden Astra and drove down to the river waterfront opposite of Perth. We parked and walked down the waterline while taking in breathtaking views of the city. We found a ferry and rode it to the north bank of the city.
I got off and looked at my surroundings, and immediately I noticed a gelato shop near a construction site. We walked around the marina area and finally, FINALLY got a delicious gelato. This gelato was so good, it would have made our friend and fellow gelato consumer, Dan, extremely jealous!
We walked some more and found a cool building surrounded by fountains.
My dad and I sat down for a moment and took advantage of the free WiFi (I know what you’re thinking, “Wait you’re traveling the world and visiting a beautiful city you’ve never been to, and you’re on your phones!?!?”, And my answer to you is: yeah, so what?). We walked around, I rode a goose, and we took the ferry back to our car.
My dad took the scenic route home and we stopped by Cottlesloe Beach, one of the many white sand beaches.
As we pulled up, we heard extremely noisy birds everywhere, flying around trees and squawking.
We even saw some less noisy parrot-like birds (like the one my mom found on the internet below) that were absolutely beautiful with their green, blue, yellow, and red feathers.
After the beach, we got home, I took another swim and went to bed.
Our next day we were catching a ferry to Rottnest Island to spend the day at the beach and see some wildlife. We were most excited to go to this beautiful island because of the small marsupials the island swarms with called Quokkas.
The island was given the name “Rotte nest” (rat nest) by Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh who mistook the quokkas for large rats when briefly exploring the island in December 1696.
Before we even got to the first beach, we saw about ten of them just wandering about, minding their own business. These animals are actually not afraid of humans so they come right up to you in search of a tasty snack.
Our first beach spot was located near an old lighthouse which, of course was a setting for a few thousand pictures and selfies.
We finally got down to the beach, eager to get in the blue water. I got my bathing suit on and jumped in. Right off the bat, there were fish everywhere.
I swam out exploring the reef, and I felt a sharp pain in my arm. I turned around and saw a jellyfish. I freaked out, swimming as fast as I could towards shore. Pretty scared with the jellyfish encounter, I proceeded to be extra careful while swimming again, looking out for the small painful beasts.
After spending some time reading on the sand, we packed up and headed off to another beach, or rather a swimming pool. It is still the ocean, don’t get me wrong, but there are sides of a little underwater alcove that are made of coral which gave it the vague shape of a large swimming pool. I swam in the “pool” and walked out farther off shore where the coral was big enough to walk on.
After we swam and had our pictures, we moved on once again, seeing a large harbor and finally catching the bus back to the main ferry-terminal area.
First off, we were all salty and grimy so, we took a shower at one of the public bathrooms. Since we had until eight-o-clock we decided to get a snack at an outside bar.
I saw a tub of French fries and said “Mmmm” so that’s what we got. While we were eating, Quokkas roamed throughout the tables and looked for a dropped French fry.
Jeff found a new & receptive audience:
A while later we walked over to the jetty to catch our ferry “home”.
On our very last day in Perth, we slept in because our flight to New Zealand was super late at night, and we didn’t have to check out until 5:00 in the afternoon. We decided to go to the Target in town and maybe buy some clothes. Long story short, it was the worst Target in the world. All it was, was clothes. They didn’t even have a produce section, or a bed and bath section, and the tech section was as big as two parking spots. Nevertheless, I still found some shorts and a swim shirt. I was further disappointed when I asked for the restroom and they said, “We don’t have one.” With that, we bought our stuff and went to explore the Freemantle (or “Frio” as the locals call it) Market. We walked inside and saw shops everywhere. They sold everything from opal jewelry to fidget cubes. And by golly, the FOOD! A whole half of the building was dedicated to food shops and small kitchens selling deliciously fragrant things. We walked around and got some sort of spinach/beef quesadilla that was delicious. As we were walking out of the market, I saw a vendor selling fruit slushies and they looked really good, so my mom got a mango one and I got a mixed berry one.
We headed out of the market and got into the car, wondering what to do for the next couple of hours before our flight. Suddenly we all had the great idea to go to the beach and hang out on the sand. When we got there, we saw a huge gathering of people and realized it was a small fair. Luckily for us, the beach was almost empty, thanks to the fair being on the grass behind it.
We sat on the beach for a couple of hours and when it was time for our flight to New Zealand, we simply got in the car, drove to the airport and returned our trusty Holden Astra. As we were checking in, we had a small jolt of panic when the attendant told us we needed to have a flight out of New Zealand booked in order to enter the country. So, we quickly booked our flight from New Zealand to Sydney, Australia and were able to get onto the flight. We got on our Emirates flight (operated by Quantas) and flew to Sydney where we would catch another flight to Christchurch on an Airbus A380, the biggest passenger plane in the world. To board this massive thing, we first had to be boarded onto airport buses and then driven to the plane. By the way, the A380 holds 9 busloads of people.
As I got out of the bus I looked up in awe and saw it. It gives ginormous a new meaning, It’s so big. I continued to gape at it and take several pictures, amazed that it could even move, let alone fly.
As we got on I was further impressed when we got inside and sat down. There were huge monitors and relatively comfortable seats with adequate legroom and the windows were pretty nice as well. We took off and it was probably the smoothest takeoff ever. When we climbed to our maximum altitude, I saw the Jetstream coming out of one of the massive engines and continued to watch Iron Man :). We touched down in Christchurch and prepared for our next adventure.
Until next time, Mick
More on the Airbus A380
Nice job mick!