Perth: The End of Australia
Perth was the end of Australia both literally (in the sense that it’s the furthest city away from the population centres on the east coast) and figuratively (in the sense that my days there would be the last I’d spend in the beautiful countrynent.)
I arrived in Perth at 07:00 on the bus from Coral Bay, 1200km to the north. This was a good thing. I like arriving in a new city with a fresh new day in front of me, especially when I’ve managed to get as much sleep as I (surprisingly) had on the bus. It gives you time to get your accomodation and plans for the coming days sorted out without any time (or daylight) pressure.
Ironically I had no trouble with either in Perth, and would have managed equally well had I arrived at 19:00. I stepped off the bus with a new friend Holly. She was planning on heading to the YHA and I was content to share a taxi there. Shortly thereafter we met Martja, a Dutch woman who said she was about to be picked up by the owner of another hostel, The Witch’s Hat. I was even more ready to follow her. A free ride, plus the fact that Martja was a repeat customer of The Witch’s Hat convinced me to stay there.
A few minutes after bidding Holly adieu, Martja and I were picked up by Renee, the owner of TWH. She was a lively and entertaining blond woman, somewhere in her mid 50’s, and I (and many other guests) would grow quite fond of her, and the place, during my stay there. Not only was it a nice small hostel (rare in large cities like Perth) it had a respectably equipped kitchen and was located in a nice residential neighbourhood. Score!
By the time I’d checked in it was perhaps 09:00, still comparatively early. I knew EXACTLY how I wanted to spend my time that day. With food. Having spent three days bushwalking, then three days on the train, then a week in caravan parks then a week in the tiny and food-sparse town of Coral Bay, I was very anxious to cook myself a nice meal again.
And so I did. After a walk up to the supermarket, fruit and vegetable shop and bakery, I was ready to go. I spent a couple of hours in TWH’s fine kitchen preparing a massive quantity (perhaps eight litres) of vegetable-barley soup. (I was going to call it “delicious vegetable-barley soup,” but even though others said so too, that might sound a bit vain.)
After cooking, I sat out in the back courtyard of the hostel to enjoy the fruits of my labour and a nice read.
In the late afternoon I started chatting with a young(er than me) German fellow named Henning. He was in Australia with a working holiday visa (a scheme that allows guests to legally take on short term employment during a stay of up to a year in the country). Despite having been in the country for three months, he said he was still quite disappointed at having not seen any of the “real Aussie lifestyle.” He also needed to make some money soon. Henning hoped to remedy this by working as an au pair for a family in Perth. This plan was not without its problems. Employment agencies would only consider women for such jobs, and he wasn’t confident enough in his English to advertise on his own.
So it was that I spent two or three hours sitting out in the courtyard drinking wine and (assistant) writing and editing an advertisement/cover letter for a German man aspiring to be a nanny in Perth, Australia. We were both very pleased with the final product and he’d go on to drop it in mailboxes in affluent suburbs, as well as to post it in schools, kindergartens and churches in the city.
After enjoying a supper of soup and bread, I was happy to have an early night.
Which would contrast tremendously with my next day. It began simply enough. With a walk down through Northbridge, the entertainment district of Perth (it really is spectacular how the bars, nightclubs and restaurants of the city are so concnetrated in this one small district.) My walk carried on through the Central Business District (CBD), most notable for its two lovely pedestrian malls (the abundence of interesting pedestrianized streets are one way in which most Australian cities are clearly superior to Toronto.) My tour ended, or at least changed directions when I reached the riverfront and met Michelle, a girl I knew from Coral Bay, and her new friend Amy. Since my trip had no particular aim, I followed them back through the city, hopping on one of the free buses that runs through Perth’s downtown area, then hopping off again and wandering about some more, listening as they talked about clothes, which men were attractive and which women were ugly. Upon reflection, that probably makes them both sound miserable and shallow, quite undeservedly. There were moments of that, but in truth both Amy and especially Michelle were quite fun and interesting. Eventually they headed back to their hostel, and I found myself near mine. I headed in, planning on a quick lunch and then a continuation of my tour.
It didn’t quite work out that way. When I returned, Martja was cleaning out all of the unclaimed food from the fridges, and despite the seas of soup I had left, I couldn’t pas up the opportunity to cook some more. Two pepper, onion, tomato, ham and cheese omlettes later (all the ingredients were unclaimed food) I was outside having a rather larger mid-day meal than I’d anticipated. As were others. I offered the soup around to whoever wanted any, and even went inside and made another omlette for an Englishwoman who’d just arrived and hadn’t gone food shopping yet.
After lunch I decided I really needed to finish off my West Coast ‘blog entry and spent the afternoon writing, as well as making CD backups of all my digital photos.
Evening came and I was just finishing up when Renee appeared and asked if anyone wanted to head down to The Mustang (a local bar it seemed…) with The Scottish Girls. Apparently guests of The Witch’s Hat had a $100 bar tab to split between them and she could give us a ride there. The Scots had already left, but I quickly finished off my writing, got changed and headed out the door with Henning and a Japanese fellow named Yosu.
We found the Scottish ladies (Susan and… damn, I forget her friend’s name) inside, and despite the fact that they’d met a couple of big old Aussie men, we managed to make the bar tab last quite a while. Indeed, between that, the drinks Susan bought me, Henning’s turns buying a jug or two, a beer from an English couple who I told about what to do New Zealand and who liked that I was a Liverpool fan, and a Gin! and tonic bought for me by a complete stranger later at night, I managed to last until closing time spending less than $20. A minor miracle.
And I didn’t even overdo it when we carried on to Black Betty’s afterwards. Despite doing our (undoubtedly silly-ly sozzled) best to sneak in, Henning and I had to wait in line. We met the Scots girls inside, and I stood around not drinking (primarily because I’d already had more than enough) and listening to the band. The band were dressed in gothic fashions, and played all the hard and loud popular songs that I remember from my university days (Rage Against the Machine, Offspring, Marilyn Manson, Greenday… et cetera) I even found my way into the mosh pit, which brought back fond memories of trips to Foufounes Electriques (electric buttcheeks) from my first year at McGill.
Eventually even Black Betty’s closed, and despite having lost the rest of my party, I bumped into Susan on the way out. I’m not sure to say if this was fortuitous or what. It at least made the walk back to the hostel memorable. As we wandered back, she said that today (it was now after midnight) was her birthday, and went on to tell one miserable story after another about her life back home. By the time we got back to the park near the hostel, she was sobbing and we had to spend a good half hour on a park bench, her slowly calming and me doing my best to comisserate with and console her. (This primarily consisted of saying vaguely positive things in soothing tones of voice about how right she was but it wasn’t that bad and while putting my arma round her shoulders and rocking her back and forth.)
Eventually we were in shape to head to the hostel (indeed, Susan was verging on optimistic by now) and we sat out on the front porch quietly enjoying a couple of betime beers before each heading off to sleep.
The morning of day three in Perth was unsurprising. I spent pretty much all of it in bed. I dragged myself out in time for lunch, and thoroughly enjoyed some of my soup which was (as soups tend to) getting better in the couple of days after it had been made.
After lunch I headed back out into the city, intent on getting to see a bit more of it. My first stop was King’s Park, the largest “green” space. (I use quotes because this is semi-arid Western Australia and except for irrigated areas there’s little that’s really and truly green.) The park was nice enough, though not for the reasons it’s supposed to be. The primary attraction of King’s Park is supposed to be its vast expanses of bushland within the city. And while they might have been impressive for the middle of Perth, I’d spent two weeks out walking in the REAL bush, so wasn’t that impressed. No, the things I liked best about the park were the tennis club (this was the first time I’d ever seen real grass tennis courts [I’d later realize that they’re all over Perth]) and the memorial avenues. Along these avenues are great rows of trees, each dedicated to an Australian individual or unit that fought in the world wars. Each plaque explains the sad fate of the meoriand and who was responsible for their memorialization. Though they were only snippets of the stories, they made for fascinating reading.
I wandered back through the park, stopping to look out over Perth itself from the terrace (Perth isn’t a very hilly city, so one could get a good view of it from there.) After leaving King’s Park, I headed down to the riverside, the other major recreational area in the city. I was a bit disappointed by the waterfront. The Perth bell tower (which houses the old bells from London’s St. Martin in the Fields church) is spectacular and pretty, and the small pyramid-shaped conservatory is nice enough, but apart from these, there’s really not a lot there. Just some large, severely underutilised grassy spaces. I stopped and laid down in one of these to have a read, and eventually fell asleep. I was awakened by a pair of Aussies asking if I lived there. After a bit of conversation, it became clear that one of them was pleasant and normal enough, but the one who claimed to be both the New South Wales police commissioner, and one of Australia’s most wanted criminals was a bit of a disconcerting fellow. To my relief the more stable fellow dragged him away and I departed the park shortly after.
At this point readers might be getting the idea that I didn’t think much of Perth. Not so. It was more a case of Perth being a great place to live, but an only moderately interesting place to visit. Perth has a great concentration of beaches and small pretty parks, good public transit, as well as the great nightlife of Northbridge and lovely suburbs. And while it’s exactly these sort of things that make a place great to live, the lack of major “attractions” made it nice enough, but not really satisfying to visit. So it is that we have the paradox of Perth being a place I’d gladly spend a year in, but whose most interesting attraction as a visitor was the fellow guests at my hostel.
Upon arriving back at said hostel near suppertime, I found a gathering back out in the courtyard, apparently in honour of Susan’s birthday. She was far more cheerful than the previous night, and everyone shared in the delicioudly dense chocolate cake that she blew out the candles on. My evening continued with a dinner of… c’mon, guess… soup. I was still thoroughly enjoying it, but wasn’t disappointed that between my meals and gifts to fellow residents it was nearing its end.
Before, throughout and after supper, I’d been drinking red wine. I’d finally bowed to economy and given up on beer. Wine can be so incredibly cheap in Australia that it’s hard to drink anything else. Four litre casks (boxes) can be had for eight dollars or so. Admittedly, these taste vile, but even reasonably drinkable casks like the shiraz I had can be bought for less than $20.
After supper I sat and chatted with the Quentin and Beshlie, the English couple next to me, all the while trying to construct a hacky sack from duct tape and rice to replace one kicked over the fence into a neighbour’s yard. If I do say so myself, it turned out very well. Since Lacy (the American owner of the lost sack) had given hers a name (Peter), I followed suit and named my newly minted sack Alfred the Great. As the evening continued, I began explaining my interest in medieval British history to some of the crowd, much to the delight of the increasingly inebriated Beshlie.
After a while we had to relocate to the front porch, since the hostel’s residental location limits where noisy nighttime activities are allowed. The wine drinking and conversation continued out there, probably for hours, broken only by a walk to the bottle shop with Beshlie to procure more wine and later by her tumbling down the front steps of the hostel into the driveway and her campervan beyond.
It really was astonishing that the was unhurt. It appeared that she did more or less a full somersault before hitting the ground, with glass still in hand, nothing more than a little startled.
Bedtime.
My next day began almost as late, but was clearly more productive. I rose and shortly thereafter was on the suburban train out of Perth. Within twenty minutes I’d arrived at the suburb of Cottesloe, very pretty and the home of Perth’s most famous beach. A walk took me to the very pretty beach, where I spent an hour or so wandering about. A bit more walking, and quite a bit of questioning eventually took me to the ground of the Cottesloe Rugby Club, where two of my Toronto Dragons teammates used to play, and where I felt duty bound to make a pilgrimage.
I hurried back to the rail station, anxious to ensure that my time-limted ticket would still be valid for the trip out to Fremantle, probably rhe best known of Perth’s suburbs (perhaps it ought to properly be called a city in its own right.)
My plan for Fremantle was to visit a couple of the city’s microbreweries and brewpubs, as well as the market. I began by taking the free bus (as I mentioned earlier, public transit in the Perth area is good and cheap or, in the CBD areas, FREE!) both to have a quick tour of the city, and to reach the first of the breweries, Little Creatures. Which I couldn’t find. The second, the Gage Road brewery was not only far out of town, but also closed. It was enough to drive a man to drink. Fortunately the Sail and Anchor brewpub was happy to assist. Despite the expense ($7.70 per pint) I thoroughly enjoyed my beers there. The pub itself was spectacular, with a wide array of beautiful bars, interesting lounges and relaxing patios. I sat on outside on the ground floor, sipping away, reading and listening to the hippy-looking street performers across the road who played very good and relaxing music (though you probably wouldn’t have believed this if I’d begun by telling you they consisted of a tambourine, three ukeleles, a children’s toy piano in the shape of a purple dinosaur and a cello.)
After I’d finished savouring my expensive beers (a very good Redback wheat beer, a good Alpha pale ale, and a great Brass Monkey stout) I wandered through the centre of Fremantle, and enjoyed the tightly packed streets, teeming with Friday evening activity. The bustle of people enjoying al fresco meals, and heading out to the pub for the evening was very pleasant, especially with the warm evening air and pleasant breeze off the ocean. I eventually found my way back to the Fremantle Markets. These were much smaller than the Melbourne and even Adelaide markets, but of a different character. While there were purveyors of food here, the real highlight was the arts, crafts and general knicknacks. I really felt like I ought to buy something, so pretty were most of the wares, but there was nothing that really struck me enough to spend money on and to carry around, so I headed back to the train station sans souveniers, save for some ingredients to cook dinner at night.
Dinner was pasta with fresh sauteed vegetables and pesto (homemade, if a bit coarse due to the lack of a food processor.) I shared this with one more guest, adding yet another to the list of fellow travellers I’d fed in Perth. Despite the fact that it was Friday night, I really couldn’t be convinced to have yet another late evening, so I had a (relative only to the past couple) early night.
My final day in Perth was a gloriously relaxed one. I spent the morning lazing about the hostel, making my usual enormous travel day breakfast of French toast with cinammon apples and syrup… mmm… This led to my not really moving until 13:00 when several of the guests I’d become most friendly with over the past few days (Martja, Henning and Kat) invited me to join them for one last day at the beach.
We headed down to Scarborough Beach on a free bus provided by a local pub. The afternoon westerly that seems to blow in over the entire west coast of the country was in full effect, but it was still warm, and down near the sand it was lovely. The four of us spent the last few hours of the day lying around on the beach, I reading and admiring the kitesurfers, the others simply pleasuring in the sun shining down on them.
We headed back to the hostel as the air began to cool, and I enjoyed an evening almost as lazy as the rest of the day. I finished off my pasta from the previous night and did my best to finish off my second cask of wine, but couldn’t even come close, especially since I didn’t want to drink TOO much before heading to the airport.
The shuttle bus arrived for me at 21:00, shortly after I’d said my goodbyes to all the friends I’d made over the past few days.
Though I was the first of many pickups for the shuttle, and though it took a circuitous route to the airport, I wasn’t concerned. This was due to a bit of earlier poor planning on my part. I thought I’d done such a wonderful job in picking only flights that departed at pleasant, reasonable times of the day, like, say, two o’clock in the afternoon. It was only about a week prior to this evening that I’d noticed a fault in my plan. My flight to Singapore wasn’t at 13:55. it really WAS at 01:55.
Thus it was that I’d got on the last airport shuttle of the night, which had taken a long time getting there, and STILL had over four hours to kill before my flight left. Departure formalities and security ate up some of this, but I still managed to use 2.75 of the remaining 4 hours on my phone card speaking to friends and family back home before boarding the Singapore Airlines 777 and heading up into the sky away from the continent that had been “home” for the past seven weeks.
So, thanks once again to everyone who made my stay in Australia so fun and so memorable, especially those who gave me a place to stay, or helped me get from one place to another. As you surely know, it wouldn’t have been the same, if possible at all without you.
Tags: Australia
Llew