G’day Perth!

Landing in Perth was the beginning of the second leg of our honeymoon adventure and we are planning to spend the next few months down under. We hadn’t heard great reviews about Western Australia from fellow travellers, but we definitely didn’t want to miss it out and we wanted to make our own minds up on the place. From Perth airport we got on a shuttle bus that took us straight to our guesthouse, we had forgotten how easy it was to be in an English speaking country, there was no mishaps and no miscommunication getting to our destination, we liked the place already! We got dropped off outside our hostel in Northbridge at 7am and it was boiling hot, as the bus driver unloaded our bags he told us he hoped we were going to enjoy the heatwave that was beginning that day and was to last the whole week at a staggering 42 degrees. Wowzas!

First things first, we needed an Aussie bank account and phone. Our first three days were spent organising and planning, then before we knew it, it was New Year’s Eve. We left things a bit late and didn’t know what we were going to do, so we walked to the supermarket at about 7pm for some booze to drink before we went out, but unlike the UK, supermarkets don’t sell alcohol and all of the liquor stores had already closed, so we didn’t have anywhere to source some cheap drink. Luckily for us there was two german guys in our dorm room that had stocked up earlier that week and decided they would like to share their extra large bottle of Jack Daniels with us, as well as their beer. So we all got ready, hid our alcohol (because it’s illegal to drink on the street) and walked to the nearest bar. We stood outside the bar in an alley way and between the four of us, downed the litre of JD, hiding when the police walked passed. It felt like we were 16 again, but it was fun and got us very drunk. Probably a good job we did have a drink before we went inside, because a round for two people was coming to £15!! At midnight we celebrated with a shot of Jägermeister, only because Jäger Bombs were £9 each, and danced our asses off until the club shut at 2am. It was a fab, but random night spent with lots of lovely strangers, definitely a one to remember.

We had already done a little bit of sightseeing around Perth City, including the Bell Tower and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, but we wanted to go a bit further afield and see what else WA had on offer. We decided we wanted to do a road trip from Perth to Adelaide in a camper van, but when we worked out prices, it was going to cost far too much for just two people. We went to post an ad for other people to join us on the hostel notice board when we seen one from two other people wanting to do the exact same route and leaving on the same day we wanted to. Perfect or what?! After travelling for nearly 6 months together, we thought it would be nice to travel with a bigger group and wasted no time in getting in touch with them. We met up with them that evening, they were both french but spoke brilliant english and informed us they were also travelling with a group of four belgians. It sounded like a decent plan as they wanted to see everything we wanted to see, so we all went in search of a camper van and met up with the whole group later that day. Us two were to leave at around 4pm on January 4th and meet up with the other 6 about an hour south of Perth, because they were attending a work party and our road trip would begin from there. That meant we had the van for an extra day and a half, to visit a few places we hadn’t had the chance to already.

All excited and raring to go, we went to pick up our camper van from the depot. The company we used was called Wicked Campers and when we walked into the car park, we were greeted with an array of vans and cars sprayed with different graffiti patterns, they were pretty cool but looked in quite bad condition. The couple in front of us walked out because the camper they offered them was in terrible condition, then when we got to the front, they informed us that they didn’t have a booking for us and there was nothing else they could offer us… Just great!! Throwing a big spanner in the works, it meant we had very little time to make a decision about whether or not we still wanted to go along with the road trip. All other companies were either too expensive or didn’t have anything available, so, much to the disappointment of our two new french friends, we ended up hiring a car, which had to be dropped back off in Perth, then booked flights to our next destination.

We left the frenchies to go to their party, then the two of us checked out of our hostel and set off North towards Cervantes to the Pinnacles Desert in Nambung National Park. The two hour drive seemed to take forever as there wasn’t much scenery at first, but as we got near, we noticed huge white sand dunes just off the side of the road, they were amazing. Because of the hassle we had with the transport, we didn’t arrive at the Pinnacles Desert until about 5pm, but it was probably a good thing because the light was amazing and made for some fantastic pictures. Oh and we got in for free because the whoever worked there had already knocked off for the day! The desert was covered with thousands of limestone pillars that had apparently began as seashells, some very small and others reaching up to 3 metres high. We were able to drive around a loop in the car and jump out to take pictures. On our drive home we stopped at a lookout point over Hangover Bay to have a picnic and watch the sunset, it was a lovely evening and we seen our first wild kangaroos just as we were getting back into the car, we were both really excited and scared them off trying to get close for some snaps.

We decided we wanted to spend the night in Fremantle instead of going back to Perth, that meant we could spend most of the next day there on the beach. We didn’t arrive until after 10pm, it was like a ghost town and we couldn’t find any backpacker places to stay, so we found an empty car park near the beach so no one could see us and settled there for the night. You can imagine the horror on Vic’s face when we woke at 5am to find the car park full of cars and people in their swimwear running up and down the path right in front of the car. Come on, who gets up and goes to the beach for a swim at 5am?! Luckily there was a cafe just at the other side of the car park for us to go and get breakfast, then sneakily get washed and brush our teeth in the toilet. We spent the day on various beaches from Fremantle to Cottesloe, had lunch in a beach bar, then made use of the public showering facilities seeing as we slept in the car the night before… This travelling malarky isn’t always amazing, but will definitely make for some funny stories.