Perth was a good stopping point for us between New Zealand and Malaysia. The Batik Air flight from Auckland was 7 hours and 40 minutes, and we gained 5 hours due to time zone changes. So, even though we left Auckland at 7:30 in the morning, it was just after 10 a.m. when we arrived in Perth. After going over the Tasman Sea, the flight path had us cross the entire country of Australia. It is the sixth largest country in the world in land area and about the same size as contiguous USA.
Perth is warm and sunny most days of the year. It sits on the wide Swan River, upstream from the Indian Ocean and a few miles inland. The city center is quite modern, although they have retained several historic buildings interspersed between modern office buildings and apartments. They have a beautiful harbor area and many large parks and green spaces. We walked around the city center the day we arrived, and then continued along the palm-tree-lined river to a kangaroo sanctuary situated on an island in the river. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived at the sanctuary and the kangaroos were laying in the shade of the bush. It was a little underwhelming as they were a bit hard to see. We had walked a lot by then and were getting quite tired from the heat and jetlag, so we called it a day and headed back to the hotel for some supper.
The next day, we rented a car and drove out of town to Caversham Wilderness Park, which featured many native Australian animals. The highlight for us was getting to hold a koala bear named Clayton. He was 4 years old, adorable and very cuddly – we would have loved to take him home with us! We learned that koalas need to sleep between 18 and 20 hours per day to preserve energy because they only eat eucalyptus leaves which have very low protein content. They eat between 500g to 1kg (1-2 lbs) of leaf each day. Koalas are one of more than 200 marsupial species found in Australia.
A marsupial is a mammal that raises its newborn offspring inside an external pouch at the front or underside of their bodies. Of course we knew about kangaroos and wallabies, and we were able to feed and pet some of them. We also saw a Tasmanian devil (the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world) and Australian possums. But we had never heard of wombats, bettongs, bandicoots or quokkas before (more on quokkas later). We took our picture with a wombat named Calli. She was rescued as a joey after her mom got killed by a car, a very common occurrence there. She was quite big and her handler told us she really likes to cuddle.
There were also many birds in the park that were so beautiful and majestic, like the black-necked stork, the laughing kookaburra and a lovely cockatoo couple. The gang gang cockatoo and pink cockatoo are inseparable and very much in love according to the park employees! We also saw some other unique animals like the echidna, the dingo and the flying fox (which had a 1.5 meter or 5 foot wingspan!)
After our visit of the Caversham Wildlife Park, we stopped at a small winery and popular chocolate store in the nearby Margaret River valley. This little protected valley stays so warm that the vineyards there actually produce two crops of grapes each year. We were surprised by the size of the vines, quite tall plants.
After getting our chocolate fix, we headed to the Sunset Coast north of Perth. We drove down the coast surveying the numerous beaches along the way and decided to stop at one called City Beach. We had a nice swim there in the Indian Ocean (though Sophie would realize the next day that she had an unfortunate jellyfish encounter). We witnessed a beautiful sunset and ended the day with a great seafood supper at a restaurant overlooking the beach.
We spent the next day on a popular island called Rottnest Island. It was a 90-minute ferry ride from Perth. We saw dolphins on the way along with nice homes on the river banks before arriving at the open sea.
The island is closed to cars, so we rented bikes along with snorkels to better explore the island’s many beaches and bays. The landscape was a bit scruffy (in our view), very hot and dry. The soil was mostly sand and rock.
The beaches, however, were lovely with lots of powder sand. We stopped at one called Parakeet Bay in the afternoon and did some snorkeling. We saw lots of little fish, but nothing really colorful like we have seen in other areas of the world.
After drying off, we headed back to the settlement, where we dropped off the bikes and had a beer at an outdoor pub while waiting for our return ferry. This island is known for its cute marsupials called Quokkas. They don’t have any predators on the island, so they are quite tame and curious. They would hop up close to your feet and give you a little sniff.
We had an evening flight out on our last day in Perth. Our hotel (Crown Plaza) gave us a late checkout and let us borrow a couple bikes in the morning. They also had free laundry facilities, which served us well. We rode the bikes to King’s Garden, which is 25% larger than Central Park in NYC. It was up on a hill overlooking the river and city. We saw a 750 year old Gija Jumulu tree (Baobab) near the entrance. We didn’t get to explore much of the botanical gardens, as it wasn’t too close to our hotel and we still needed to check out. We spent the afternoon at the hotel restaurant and lobby, triaging photos, working on the blog and just relaxing before it was time to head to the airport to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur, our next destination.
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