We were up early in order to squeeze in a quick visit to Raffles Hospital before our flight. We ate breakfast around the huge group of overweight schoolchildren that had checked into the hostel the night before and were putting Nutella on their bread and putting it in the toaster, despite the large sign above the toaster informing them not to. The first bit was just to take some more of my blood. We popped back to our hostel while the test was being done in order to make sure all our things were together and we were ready to go. We weren't only going to the hospital for the blood test results but for the key blood pressure results too. If it turned out to be too low, the doctor had said he would recommend me not flying. Our preference was to fly either way however, we both don't enjoy it and wanted to get our longest one so far out of the way sooner rather than later. We wandered back to the hospital, fairly confident we'd be in the Southern Hemisphere by day's end. We saw a different doctor this morning, we assumed our normal one had the day off. The results were heading back in the right direction, albeit rather slowly, and he said we would be okay to fly. He did tell us that if it had been the day before, he would have told us not to due to low blood pressure. It was a big relief and we could finally start to get excited about heading to Australia. We sped back to the hostel to collect our things and flagged a taxi down to get us to the airport. Fortunately, with Singapore being such a dinky country, the airport was only a 20 minute drive away, so we made it with plenty of time to spare. We joined the relatively short queue at the 'Scoot' desk ready to check in our bags. This had been the flight we had been dreading since we'd booked it, before we had left the UK. 15kg of checked baggage is not much when travelling the world and we weren't confident that atleast mine would be under that limit. Despite the queues short length, everyone seemed to be in huge groups and checking their lives possessions on to the plane and it dragged. Eventually, we made it to the desk and Charlotte went first, as we were pretty confident her bag would be fine. The result was 14.2kg, pretty good but still close to the mark. With Charlotte's bag whisked off it was my turn to step up to the plate. To say I was pleased when the small screen stopped on 15kg dead was an understatement. It took a good while for the huge grins to disappear from our faces. We'd achieved the weight limit with very little loss of our belongings, only almost empty smellies and Charlotte's 7 month old, well worn, rather smelly Sketchers trainers bit the dust. We finished checking in and headed through passport control to hunt down out departure gate. As ever it was a long trek away from passport control but time was on our hands. We sat around by the gate until it opened and joined the queue to board our plane to the Southern Hemisphere. As I regularly mention, neither of us enjoy flying. It didn't fill us with confidence when we were sat on an aeroplane of a company neither of us had ever heard of and the pilot says "let's Scoot on out of here", (Scoot is the name of the company, so he probably gets a bonus for saying it". It was a really good flight though and the 5 hours absolutely flew by, if you'll excuse the pun. At about quarter past 6 in the evening, we landed in Australia. We were really excited despite the fact we still had to get through Australia's tough border control (Charlotte used to watch 'Nothing to Declare' so much back home we were pretty much experts on the process!), however, we had no fruit, no vegetables, no excess cash, no wooden items and were only visiting on a tourist visa, so we were slightly disappointed to absolutely fly through with no problems at all. We still managed to get an Australian passport stam though, despite a man trying to get us through the e-passport gates. Where's the fun in that! We didn't come all this way to not get a passport stamp!! Anyway, we were off into the big bad world of Australia and hunted down the stop for the shuttle bus into Perth. After a short wait it pulled up, we chucked our luggage in the trailer and started into the city. We had only been in the country for a matter of minutes but were already amazed by what we were seeing. The sun was setting and the sky had turned a beautiful green colour. We had read that the shuttle does drop offs at accommodation upon request but when we asked ours she was adamant that they hadn't been doing that for a long time. She was still very nice and when she dropped us off at her designated stop she gave us very clear directions and even walked with us for the first small part. We found the place relatively easily, despite it being down a dark road in what looked, through the night, like a residential neighbourhood. We tried the door but found it locked and with no bell in sight, were left wondering how to gain access. Eventually, the receptionist appeared from nowhere and let us in. He looked like an interesting chap, not in keeping with what we expect a hostel receptionist to look like. Let's just say he would look more at home driving around a small Australian town in a pick up, or ute as it is known colloquially. He didn't seem overly interested when showing us around and dumped us in the messiest, most unappealing room we had seen in 7 months of travelling. We went down to the kitchen to fill our water bottles up and had to walk through the stares of the entire hostel population (all long termers, who were living there and working in Perth) and visit the filthiest kitchen we had seen in 7 months. We got our water and returned to our room, far from convinced by our Perth digs. I was still exhausted and recovering from Dengue, so Charlotte started looking for a different place to stay there and then. We found somewhere fairly close by but decided to walk there the next morning to have a look before we made any quick decisions. While we were browsing, 2 of our roommates came into the room and one was anything but welcoming. Charlotte was standing by my bed and his was below me. He ushered Charlotte out they way saying "this is my bed, where's yours?", as if she had no right to even be in the room. This was the final nail in the coffin for this particular hostel and we couldn't wait to get this night over and done with and get out.
Thursday
We had hoped to be out and about in Perth today enjoying the city but instead were fairly preoccupied by trying to move hostels. Charlotte had found one just down the road, so, after waking up at half past 10, we skipped breakfast and walked to the new hostel. It was only a 10 minute walk and despite the scaffolding next door, pretty easy to find and fairly quiet. The receptionist was really welcoming and nice and confirmed our suspicions that they had 2 beds remaining. Despite our desperation to move we took her up on her offer to have a look at the room first. It looked like a palace compared to our current one, so we snapped up the 2 beds before it was too late. We returned to the horrible hostel with the intention of collecting our bags and checking out. The first part was the easy part. We packed away the very few items we had used the night before and headed for the reception. The problem was that there was nobody there to speak to about checking out. To save hanging around for ages we took our bags to the new hostel and checked in to our room. It was quiet, the kitchen was sparkling and everyone seemed nice. It was also time for lunch and we were starving having missed breakfast. We wandered down a road near our new hostel and found some life in the otherwise quiet area. There were a few shops, a park and more importantly and couple of cafes. We picked one called 'Dôme' (which so far on our travels seem to be exclusively located in Western Australia), which sort of looked like a Toby Carvery/Harvester sort of place and went in. It was more cafe than Gastro pub but it was fine. This was our first foray into Australian pricing and it was a little bit of a shock as to how expensive things were. We had to eat though and got a huge sandwich each, as well as a large bowl of chips to share. We were pretty full by the time we had finished and were almost ready to get into the city. After a quick stop off at the new hostel it was time to ditch the old one. We were struggling to come up with a way of telling them that we were leaving, without causing too much of an issue. The one we decided to roll with was that we were flying to Adelaide early. The only problem we had was that we had already moved our bags and if we both went back to check out it might look slightly strange. Charlotte was the brave one to go while I "stayed with the bags". She managed to find the odd receptionist and asked to check out. He then shouted round the corner to a colleague, "Bob! That British couple want to check out". We had obviously been spoken about. Charlotte said Bob was much nicer, easier to speak to and understanding. He enquired as to why we were checking out and if there was any problems but Charlotte just told him we were moving on to Adelaide earlier than planned. What we didn't expect was a full refund bar the night we had already had, which was an added bonus. With the deed done, Charlotte returned triumphant. It was time to get into Perth. By this time it was creeping into mid afternoon so we didn't have a great deal of time to do anything. We walked to the train station, which took about 15 minutes at a leisurely pace and picked up a CAT bus, which stands for Central Area Transit. They have 4 lines, which cover most places within the city and the best part is, they are absolutely free. We hopped on the green CAT and headed for a place that interested me slightly more than it did Charlotte, the WACA. It stands for Western Australia Cricket Association but the name also applies to the cricket ground and is where England have a habit of losing test matches when they play for the Ashes in Australia. We were the only ones to get off the bus at this stop and it was pretty quiet around the ground. We walked round the entire stadium but it was boarded off and there wasn't really much to see. It gave me the opportunity to bore Charlotte to death with facts like the wind called the Fremantle Doctor which cools the city of Perth down during the afternoon and is so strong it can effect play at the WACA. It blows in from the Indian Ocean and is so called as it seems to come from the nearby coastal city of Fremantle (see, now I'm boring you with it!). We took a snap with the stadium badge and wandered off back in the direction of the CAT. It was free so we thought we would make the most of it. We had nothing else planned for our day but stopped off at a shopping area to buy a fruity drink to refresh ourselves. We sat on a bench in the shade and watched the world go by, still having to pinch ourselves that we were actually in Australia. After our pit stop it was back onto the CAT to the train station. On the way we spied a souvenir shop outside but had to wait all the way to the train stations that was the next stop. It was only a 5 minute walk round the corner. We managed to find the obligatory pin badge and snapped it up so we didn't have to worry about it. It was early evening, so we decided to walk back to the hostel and hope there would be a supermarket nearby where we could pick up some dinner. We were informed by reception that we'd have to return to town as that's where the big supermarkets were, otherwise, we would have to make do with a petrol station. We walked the 20 minutes back into the city and visited Woolworths (completely different from our Woolworths but with exactly the same name) and picked up dinner. We returned once more to the hostel but held off cooking for a while as it was rather busy. Eventually, we managed to squeeze ourselves on to a hob and cook up our chicken and pasta. Before hitting the hay, we booked a ferry for the next day that would take us to Rottnest Island, about 20km off the coast in the Indian Ocean.
Friday
We had an early start in order to catch the CAT to the Barrack Street Jetty, where we would then catch our ferry to Rottnest Island. We found a seat on one of the sun decks and settled down for the ride. We started off along the Swan River, which gave us good views of Perth on either side. After an hour or so of passing through the affluent suburbs, which previously contained Australia's most expensive house, which sold for Aus$57.5 million (or not far off £30 million), we hit the coastal city of Fremantle. The ferry made a stop here where it picked up a horde of locals who were after a day out on the island. When we were pretty much full to sinking, we picked up some speed and shot across the calm ocean and arrived in about 45 minutes. We had the option to rent bikes and explore the island that way but I was still suffering from Dengue, which had the tendency to make me really tired, so we stuck with walking and wouldn't go too far. The cruise to the island had taken a couple of hours, so by the time we arrived we fancied something to eat. We found the local supermarket in the centre of the main settlement, which as far as we could tell, was called Settlement but is near Thomson Bay, so it might be called that too. After our slap up lunch of cheese and ham rolls we walked around the island in search of the kangaroo like animal called the Quokka. We found a viewing point looking across the see first and we took some time to admire the incredibly clear waters and a woman passing offered to take photo for us. In the distance, we could just about make out the hazy skyscrapers of Perth jutting upfront the ocean. On the next stretch we found a lighthouse but it was the beach behind that lighthouse that was worth the hot walk up the hill. It was tucked away in a cove and crescent shaped. As perfect beaches go it was almost a clichė but to us Brits who are used to pebbles caked in smelly seaweed, it was pretty special. We picked up our flip flops and walked along the edge of the water. We may not find the beach at home but the water temperature wasn't far off from a cold winters night in the English Channel, it was freezing. We didn't fancy climbing over the rocks at the end, so we turned around and walked along the beach again. Somehow, on the return leg, I missed a rock in the sand and caught my foot on it, bringing up a nice cut in an awkward place. We climbed back up the steps to the lighthouse and cleaned our feet off with some seawater we had bottled up before ascending. It was blowing a hoolie at the top of the hill and it was actually quite hard to keep our things together. With the wound and our feet cleaned we walked back to town. I was already struggling with fatigue by now and when we got back to town, we picked up a cold drink and some food in the hope it would give me some energy. It didn't and after wandering around the port area for a little while, we found a shaded bench on which to rest. I decided to rest my eyes for a few minutes and unsurprisingly, fell asleep while Charlotte kept me from falling off the bench. It was annoying to still be suffering from something I had picked up almost 3 weeks earlier but atleast we could get out the room, unlike in Singapore. The sleep didn't really help how I felt and it didn't help in convincing Charlotte that I would be fit enough to complete a 3 day trip in the Australian outback in a couple of weeks time. Despite her best efforts to cancel it and get a full refund, she was being told that they could only refund 50% of what was quite an expensive trip. I was sure I would be fine though and knew we would have time to relax in Adelaide. We wandered around a little bit more and were in the right place at the right time to spy an elusive Quokka shading himself under a tree. It was clear now why the Dutch explorers who had found the island had called it Rottnest, which means Rats Neat. The Quokka looked like a tiny Kangaroo and had a long rat like tail. We had read the island was covered with the animals but we only saw the one, as they are nocturnal. We had also heard the fashion is to take a selfie with the Quokka but we left the little guy alone (as we had also heard that they are a little bit flea infested). We still had the 2 hour ferry back to Perth, which was due to leave at about half past 4, so we were lingering around the harbour area for a reason. We wandered along the jetty and along with a few other people who had had their fill of Rottnest Island, managed to get onboard our boat and secure ourselves a seat inside with the air conditioning. The boat quickly filled up and we started back across the ocean to Fremantle. For the entire journey we eavesdropped on a painful conversation between an elderly English couple and a group of female Chinese tourists. They could understand basic English but hit a wall when the man started talking about the use of Cod and Haddock in British fish and chips compared to Barramundi in Australian fish and chips. We did chuckle. We made a couple of stops dropping the masses off in Fremantle and then chugged on to Perth.
We chose to walk back into the city as we needed to swing by the supermarket for some provisions before heading home. As frugal as ever, we still had some pasta sauce left over from our previous evening, so dinner was the same as the night before.
Saturday
Already, we had reached our final day in our first destination in Australia. After a tiring day the day before we were in no hurry to get up and out. When we did, we took advantage of the free breakfast offered by the hostel. After some toast and cereal we wandered out into Saturday morning Perth. I can't actually remember if we walked or caught the bus but somehow, we made it down to Barrack Street Jetty again, which is where we caught the ferry to Rottnest Island the day before. This area was buzzing with families enjoying the riverside area. It all seemed quite clean and fresh, so it may have been newly renovated. For the next 2 hours we walked along the Swan River, making use of the parkland that covers 90% of its banks. A couple of time we sat down on a bench and simply enjoyed the views across the wide river to South Perth. When we turned back on ourselves we felt the full force of the Fremantle Doctor hitting us in the face. It really was cooling but not to the point of being unpleasant and it just meant we had to be extra careful not to burn in the sun. We spied a hill just beyond the city and were curious as to what the statue on it was but by the time we moved on we had forgotten all about it. By now we had reached lunch and we did briefly look for a Starbucks but there wasn't any around. We went to Woolworths instead and picked up a cold drink, some ready made sandwiches and I splashed out on a sausage roll. The sandwiches were a little disappointing and the sausage roll was very bland (they clearly haven't mastered them down under yet!) but we were full and fairly happy. We had exhausted things to do in the city by now and wandered back to our hostel in the hope of finding something else to do. We had a place called Kings Park written down on our to do list and it was also visible on our map but we had somehow so far missed it. We walked in the parks direction, through the light industry suburbs of Perth and found the park just past some roadworks. It seemed rather plain and boring when we first reached it but after following the pathway a little bit it really became worth the walk. The Swan River slowly came into view above some trees and then when those trees broke, the city of Perth emerged looking resplendent in the setting Saturday sun. We carried on a short distance and found a viewing platform that provided an even better angle. We sat here for a short while, I was still slightly effected from exhaustion, but it was mainly for the peaceful, outstanding views of the city of Perth. While we were sat there, an elderly gentleman strode on to the platform in his Khaki shorts snapped a photo and strolled off as quickly as he arrived. We assumed he did this everyday and took the same photo everyday and we really couldn't blame him, we both agreed we could happily see that view everyday. The time came to move on and it was quickly becoming clear that sooner or later we would bump into the statue we had seen from the riverside earlier. Turns out, it was the city's cenotaph, looking out across the whole of Perth. Again there were people of all ages using the green space, enjoying the views, having barbecues and sunbathing, even as the sun was dipping into the Indian Ocean. We only had a couple of hours in the park, as we needed to get back to pack our bags for our flight the next day, which was a little disappointing. It finished off our visit to Perth nicely and when we got back to our hostel we did a little bit of reading up on the park. Apparently it is one of the biggest parks in the world and contains botanical gardens and a reservoir, so we had only seen a tiny bit of it. We couldn't help but be envious of the locals who get to enjoy it every weekend. Dinner turned out to be a bit of a disaster as I somehow managed to burn the pizza and the garlic bread. I blame it on not having used an oven for months though.
In a flash, Perth was done and dusted. We had loved it, as I hope the blog made clear. Dengue was still effecting operations but I was becoming fitter by the day so it was nothing to worry about. The city of Adelaide was our next destination, in the state of South Australia.
James and Charlotte
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