This is a special trip for me, as this made me feel more like an explorer than a tourist. Perth is not a famous tourist destination in Australia and yet we decided to visit it out of our curiosity. Most of the cities and tourist places in Australia are located on the east coast. Perth is one of the loneliest cities in the world, it is closer to Indonesian capital of Jakarta than it is to Sydney/Canberra. I was extremely curious to see what lies on the other side of the continent. It is around 5hr journey from Sydney and we decided to go there for Australia day long weekend by taking a day off.
Day 1: Sydney to Perth
We took our flight on Friday morning from Sydney. I got my window seat from where I started observing the main land Australia on the way to Perth.
The flight flew over the land for most of the journey – it looked extremely barren below with blue skies above, which gave me a feel of Australian outback.
Western Australia is famous for pink lakes and I was secretly wishing to spot one of the pink lakes from our flight. I could not spot any, but as we got nearer to Perth, I got a closer look at the land and observed few dried lakes (I assume so), which appeared like a piece of art from the flight.
The view surprisingly changed from barren lands to forests and river just before landing in Perth. The time in Perth is 3hrs behind Sydney time and we saved those hours in our travel. It is only 2:30hrs ahead of India time, which made us feel closer to India 🙂 Coincidentally, I had my India trip scheduled exactly after my Perth trip and this trip will definitely help me in reducing my jet-lag while in India.
We wanted to spend time exploring the city today and we headed to King’s park in Perth. It was a beautiful park close to city center, a perfect place to relax and exercise. We didn’t spend much time there as it was hot and we wanted to take some rest and come out in the evening.
In the afternoon, we headed to malls there to do some shopping for my India trip. The malls are filled with decorations for Chinese new year.
The best part of being in Western Australia is that we can watch beach sunsets and I decided not to miss sunsets as long as we were there. We went to South beach, the nearest beach from our stay, from where the sunset looked very beautiful and serene 🙂 This is our first sight of Indian ocean in Perth and I am excited to watch it during daytime in full colors.
The Elizabeth Quay in the city center looked absolutely stunning and beautiful in night lights.
Most of the companies in the city are associated to some minerals. Western Australia is the hub of all natural resources like iron ore, Nickel etc..Most of the minerals and petroleum is present in WA and Perth is the hub for these.
Day 2: Perth to The Pinnacles
This is the day that I have been waiting for, a road trip around Perth. We started our journey to The Pinnacles stopping at a few points in between.
Our first stop was at Yanchep National Park, which had a few caves to explore. The drive was beautiful with trees on both the sides and to my surprise, I found many burnt trees affected by bush fires.
The cave in the national park has some timings and we were asked to wait for two hours to visit that limestone cave. So, we just took a stroll around that place and started our journey back.
Our next stop was at Moore River Estuary, Guilderton where the Moore river joins the Indian Ocean.
It was a beautiful sight and Indian Ocean is back in its colors 🙂 I was reminded of Bali beaches looking at this beach. The beaches in Sydney are usually in Blue color, Pacific ocean and here the beaches looked Turquoise, Indian Ocean.
Though it was tempting to get into the beach, we resisted ourselves and planned to go to beaches the next day with proper preparation. We spent some time near the river shore and continued our journey to the Pinnacles.
I started closely looking at the landscapes of Western Australia. I heard many stories about Australian outback and I was eager to get a closer look of that.
We reached Lancelin Sand Dunes on the way and the dunes looked amazing. Though we had been to Port Stephens on the east coast, we felt equally excited to visit these sand dunes. I was surprised to see how the sand dunes accumulated on both sides of Australia almost around the same latitude.
While in Port Stephens, we had to take a bus to go into the dunes. Here we could happily walk to the dunes. The sand dunes looked steeper and whiter in color.
After spending some time at the dunes, we stopped on our way at a lookout opposite to Pinnacles Desert.
By late afternoon, we reached the Pinnacles Desert in Nambung National Park 🙂 We could drive along the Pinnacles stopping and looking at the limestone formations all the way. There are many parking spots on the way for tourists and this made it very convenient to cover the complete stretch.
The limestone rocks looked spectacular and their formation remains a mystery. As per what I understood, this region used to be a part of the ocean few thousands of years back and as the ocean receded, the sand in between the rocks blew off forming sand dunes on one side and leaving the limestone structures there. These structures are fragile and there are instructions all over not to climb over them or touch them.
I enjoyed taking photos of the shadows posed by these structures and I heard that these look spectacular orange/red in color during sunset. I wished to have stayed here till sunset but then we have to drive till Perth in the night time, which didn’t want to risk.
There were many half day bus tours from Perth which cover sunset and the night tour of the Pinnacles in the starry sky. The Pinnacles are located in a desert and the skies are usually very clear making it a perfect place to observe stars. We reached Perth outskirts by sunset and the sunset sky looked very colorful 🙂
Day 3: Perth Local
While the Pinnacles was on my To-Do list, the cricket stadium was on my husband’s list and we decided to do it today leisurely 🙂
Optus stadium is a new cricket stadium built in Perth replacing the older WACA stadium. We took the stadium tour as there was no match happening at that time. This is my first cricket stadium tour. I had been to Sydney Cricket Ground last year during a match, but never got to check it out from behind the scenes. It was a guided tour with 10 people in a batch.
The stadium looked huge and the architecture was beautiful with a group of flocking birds marking the entrance.
I have only a little knowledge about sports and everything our guide described felt fascinating, on how the same stadium is used by multiple sports and the rebranding done for each match.
We got to visit most of the rooms used by sports man in the stadium: locker rooms, spa rooms, conference hall, medical facilities, restaurants etc. It felt like a mini world in itself. It even had few rooms to stay with ground view.
We were taken into the ground and it looked magnificent 🙂 We were not allowed inside, but got to stand near the boundary area. Though I was not really keen on this stadium tour, I didn’t realize how time flew and enjoyed roaming around the stadium.
The city view from the stadium was beautiful with a park area and water all around, with an unusual shaped bridge 😛
After the 90min tour, we took a small lunch break and started driving south of Perth in search of a beach. Yesterday we explored the north of Perth and today we wanted to check the other direction. We finally found a beach Wakiki beach, which looked beautiful and less crowded. It was a warm sunny day and spending time in cool water felt very relaxing.
In the evening, we started back to Perth and stopped at Fremantle prison on the way. It looked more like a university than a prison.
We reached the most famous beach of Perth, Cottesloe beach for sunset. The beach was filled with people and restaurants all around, it felt similar to Bondi beach area in Sydney.
Day 4: Perth-> Sydney
Today we have our flight to Sydney in the afternoon and have some time in the morning. We went to King’s park again as we didn’t spend much time on our first day.
The views of the city from the park were superb. This is the perfect place to watch fireworks in Perth.
After lunch, we reached Perth airport and bid farewell to Perth. We couldn’t get a view of Indian ocean during landing, but got to see it during takeoff 🙂 Our journey started from Indian ocean back to the Pacific Ocean.
After a series of beach sunsets, I got watch a cloud sunset which looked very colorful 🙂
Overall, it was a short and sweet trip offbeat and we enjoyed our time in Perth. I just had a regret of missing pinnacles during sunset and missing pink lakes in Western Australia. If we had few more days there, we could have covered those. I am not sure if we will ever come back to this place, but if we ever come back, I have my list ready 😀
Life Travel Fantasy 