A Little Bit of Perth.

Rockingham is to Perth what Palm Beach is to the Gold Coast or Maroubra Beach is to Sydney- very pretty but with lots of doof-doof-racer-boy-hoons getting around. If you get beyond your fellow road users though, it’s actually a pretty cool place; luckily we had friends living here and used this as a base for exploring a little bit of Perth.

Beautiful coastline at Rockingham.

We drove into the quiet suburban street and caused quite a sensation as we reversed onto the driveway and bundled out of the car like tinkers. Geoff and Nanga (our incredibly gracious hosts) have wonderful neighbours and I felt like we’d stepped back into a community not unlike that which we belong to in Sunrise Beach. The beers and jokes flowed, people marvelled at the amount of crap which could actually come out of a camper trailer and we lost our children to the boxes of trains and tracks Nanga had squirreled away for a time such as this. I lost Fiela to Geoff and the BBQ, meeting up with him later at some ridiculous hour when he woke me up with his inebriated snoring. I was lost in the kitchen- an oven! A thermomix! Dishwashing water that went down the sinkhole, never to be seen again! The Uyshuis was happily lost in the suburbs, loving the sunshine, friends and comforts of four walls…

King's Park, Perth.

We popped up to Perth for the day on the train (so exciting for Caesar!) and while we waited for the most boring walking tour of the city ever (“This is the Post Office. You can send mail overseas, express, do some banking and there’s even some lovely calendars for sale… That is the ANZ Bank building, open from Monday to Friday…” WTF??) to start, watched as a drunk homeless guy did the ‘right thing’ by walking two metres down an alleyway off the main thoroughfare to go to the toilet. I forgot that sort of thing happens in the city and that homelessness occurs in our first world country. The most exciting thing about being in the city of Perth? Finding a South African biltong shop.

The Uyshuis overlooking Perth.

Anyway, we finally got clued up enough to take a bus up to King’s Park, the botanical gardens which overlook Perth. What a magical place! Apart from the stunning view over the city (much nicer than the urine soaked close up!) the gardens are amazing and we happily spent the bulk of our city day here.

King's Park hi jinx.

We did little else apart from a quick trip over to Fremantle, go to the park and make nuisances of ourselves at Geoff and Nanga’s. We would have liked to explore the Swan Valley and stay a few nights at Rottnest Island, but with the weather was changeable and we had other places we had to be; a proper exploration of Perth would have to be left to an entirely different trip.