Ahh Australia! I never imagined I would get to travel here,
especially during my exchange in Asia. But nonetheless, I have just spent four days in Perth. Looking back now, we really should have booked at
least a full week here, as it is an incredibly beautiful city, even if it is
relatively isolated and small.
I could say that I fall in love places extremely easily.
Maybe it’s my want to find the beauty in everything, or just the fact that I’m
incredibly grateful for the opportunities to visit so many different cities and
countries (especially during the last five months), but I fell in love with
Perth in the first few minutes of arriving. Even looking out the window as our
plane descended from the sky, I could tell this city was special. Even the
places that I’ve lived (Chipman, Ottawa, and Bangkok), I’ve loved them all, but
in different ways of course. Chipman is and always will be my true home, Ottawa
is where I can see myself spending the rest of my life, and Bangkok is my big
city love, where I truly branched out on my own for the first time in my life.
But I could so easily see myself living in Perth, even if just for a short
period of time. I could picture myself in every area of the city we visited.
And this city is laid out so nicely and it’s unbelievably clean. At first, it
reminded me of Calgary, I think from its cleanliness and also its lack of big
crowds. Regardless, I hope to return to Perth one day for an extended period of
time (and hopefully the East Coast of Australia also).
While we didn’t have much time in Perth, we still did a fair
amount. Day one was spent wandering the CBD shopping area, including Hay and
Murray Street and the outlets. They have free public transportation in most of
the downtown area so it was so easy to find our way around the city. Day two we
headed for Fremantle, which is just 30 minutes outside the city on the coast.
Again, it was so easy to get there as the train runs straight from downtown
Perth City to the Coast. We spent that day wandering the Sunday Markets (and
getting some nice authentic Australian Christmas gifts), enjoying lunch on the
patio, watching street performers, and touring the old Fremantle Prison. The
Prison might’ve been my favourite thing from the entire trip. Having just
recently watched Shawshank Redemption for the first time, I felt like I was in
the same prison. It was surprising to know that that prison was in use up until
1991, considering it was built in the 1860’s, and therefore very dated for a
facility in the 90s. Our tour guide was very entertaining and knowledgeable. It
was also a little chilling to see the actual gallows that were used to end the
lives of 143 inmates. While I’ve never had an interest in prisons or the
treatment of prisoners before, this tour makes me want to look into the prison
systems we have at home, even just to compare what it’s like today at a maximum
security prison to what it was decades ago, and also on the other side of the
world.
Day three we headed for the Perth Jetty to hop across the
bay to South Perth to visit the zoo. Mom was extremely excited for this, and I
can’t lie, I was too. After getting to be up close and personal with elephants
(my dream come true) in Chiang Mai, I was hoping for a similar experience with
kangaroos. While I didn’t get to hug them the way I did with the elephants, I
did find one little guy close enough that I could pet him. But he wasn’t all
that lovable back, as he pretended I wasn’t there and continued to eat his
plant. Mom was also a little disappointed that we could only find one koala and
he was sleeping at the top of a tree so he was barely visible to us. We did see
lots of other animals, many of which call Australia home, and also others
native to Asia and Africa. The zoo was a bot smaller than I originally imagined,
but fun nonetheless. We were extremely surprised to see the zoo mostly
deserted, which we actually discovered was quite characteristic of most places
we went in Perth. The population of the city is definitely less than what we
thought. But coming from the nonstop bustling of Bangkok over the last five
months, it was a great change of pace.
On our fourth and final day, and we really only had a
few hours in the morning to explore. We went back to the outlets so I could buy a
dress I had been eyeing for a few days, and then hopped on our free transport
to go to Kings Park. We were unaware of what exactly Kings Park had to offer,
but it was mesmerising. The park itself is huge, and so beautifully laid out
(like the rest of the city). As we walked along the path, we passed dozens of
families laying out on blankets having picnics in the grass, and tons of
father-son duos playing Frisbee and kicking around a football (soccer ball, to
my North American friends). The park also offers and incredible view of both
Perth City and South Perth separated by the small bay dotted with the ferry
travelling between the two sides and several sailboats.
But alas, like all my journeys and adventures, they have to
come to an end, almost always too soon, however. But my travels aren’t
completely over yet; I’m now in my way to Bali where I will stay for five days.
~Ally xxx
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