When I first landed in WA I decided to spend 2 weeks in Perth to check out the city and what it had to offer. It's a really lovely city and I much preferred it to Sydney. Although it's a decent sized city it doesn't have the loneliness or lost feeling that I associated with Sydney (which in fairness can probably be attributed to homesickness) and I just think it's super cute. Lot's of culture, a good nightlife and just really pretty.
Because I didn't have a lot of time to spend in Perth I decided to pack in as many tourist-y things as possible such as:
- SciTech, which is a really cool science museum - but it is very much a children's museum, something I didn't realise until I got there - bit awkward!
- Western Australian Museum, I love a good museum and there were two excellent exhibitions while I was there - a cute, slightly frivolous one on the history of wedding dresses and a thought provoking one on the history of the Western Australian Aborigines population (some info if you're interested).
- Perth Mint, admittedly my least favourite stop, but worth a trip to see a gold bar smelted and then re-moulded.
- King's Park, really nice place to chill out, with amazing views of the Perth harbour plus home to the DNA tower (a lookout point shaped like a strand of DNA).
- Fremantle Prison, undoubtedly my favourite place - the prison is a world heritage building built by convicts in the 1800s and served as a working prison until the 1990s. Really interesting history.
If you are going to Australia then I would definitely recommend going to Perth (although I will worn you, it's a pricey city!) - if I'd had more time I would have definitely visited Rottnest Island and also tried to see more of the West Coast. If I end up returning to Australia (and I hope I do!) seeing more of Australia would be my first priority.
The next chapter of my journey brought me about an hour away from Perth to the town of Grass Valley where I worked as a barmaid for 8 weeks. But more on that in my next post!
