Day 22-25: Perth
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2004
1
9
57
Trip End
Jan 05, 2006
Perth,
Australia
Thursday, October 7, 2004
Landed in Perth at about 9.30 which was on time...through customs and baggage, nice customs lady popped over for a chat whilst I was waiting for the baggage to ask me how long I was gonna stay, where I'd been, where I was gonna go, etc....made me feel very welcome! lol...anyways, got through all that rigmarole without any bother.
Nice hand board of information in the arrivals lounge so had a perusal for the backpacker places. Found a place called Billabong which did free airport pickups, couldn't be arsed to sort out the bus/taxi so thought that would be easier. Couple of other people from my flight also got on the Billabong bus...miserable couple who clearly didn't feel the need to chat to anyone else and were happy to stay in their couple bubble...and a nice scottish bloke called Drew who I chatted with on the way to the backpackers.
Billabong turned out to be a pretty big place, bigger than anything I'd stayed in SA. Loads and loads of people around, got into my 4 bed dorm and there was only one other guy there..a good looking English bloke called Martin, he was still in bed after having a heavy night at God's Kitchen the night before....however he got out of bed and was only wearing red band Ck's...nice welcome to Perth!! We had a quick chat, turns out he'd only been there a day, flew in from Thailand after doing the far east thing.
My head is as big as a skyscrapre
Also turns out he knew all about Norwich as he used to play for the reserves team (not from Norwich but he done his football training there) - don't think his football career went any further from what I can gather.Unpacked my stuff, quite good coz every room had it's own ensuite so only had to share it with up to 4 others. Had a shower and then went to explore the backpackers. Big outside rear courtyard with pool and sun loungers, big kitchen and entrance area with tv, internet area, tv lounge, film lounge, games room, very very mini gym..erm and that's about it. Loads and loads of english people and also groups of uber-lads which immediately put me off. In fact initially it all seemed a bit too big and I kinda felt intimidated and went back to the old me of finding it difficult to talk to people - dunno why the sudden change.
Also went to explore the area a little to find the nearest supermarket. There wasn't much open as it was a national holiday on the Monday (Queens Birthday - don't think we even celebrate that!) but walked up the street that the backpackers was one, lots of nice bars and cafes and a few shops too. First thing that struck me was how expensive groceries are - might have to start actually budgeting...how rude!
By late afternoon I was absolutely shattered, I was gonna try and stay awake until night but just couldn't do it so had a couple of hours. Wandered around to find an internet cafe and checked mails and messages. Got chatting to a local guy called Scott who's a nurse at the Royal Perth Hospital, got on pretty well and he asked if I wanted to meet for a drink, didn't have anything else to do so thought why not! He was a really nice bloke, had a drink and then he drove me around Perth and showed me the sights, nice easy way to see everything on the first day - we seemed to get on pretty well tho don't know if he fancied me or not, rubbish at working that sort of thing out.
Perth from Kings Park
He dropped me off at the backpackers and that was the night over.Tuesday, just after lunch I met up with a guy called Jonathan for a drink, he's a local guy who I talked to on the net so we thought we'd have a drink. He works for the State Library in Perth restoring old newspapers, certainly a different job. We arranged to go out in Fremantle some time as he goes out there quite a lot and knows the good places to go. I also decided I needed to get my mobile sorted out, needed to get it unlocked and get an aussie sim so all those gorgeous blokes who will be desperate to get in touch will have a number to do it ;O) Managed to get it unlocked for just $25 and got a sim for the phone so i'm all connected, should anyone want to txt me the number is 0410 394814 tho not sure what number you would have to prefix that with to get to me. Also started looking into a bank account so I can pay the vast sums of money I earn (?!?!?) into an aussie account. That's about all I achieved during the day tho I did wander around Perth city centre....did seem as if everything shuts quite early, all the shops were shutting around 5.
As far as night life goes it would appear Perth is pretty quiet during the week, things only seem to be any good at the weekends. And to make matters worse there's only ony gay bar and one gay club...that's the same as Norwich and Perth has 2 million people in it!!! Madness, so think I'll be keeping my visit to the bar and club to the weekend otherwise it's gonna be dead :O( Got back to the hostel to find another guy had arrived in the dorm, kiwi bloke called Paul who works in the mines in the area.
The Bell Tower
He does a 4 week on 1 week off rota so to save money he stays at the Billabong when he has time off. Tuesday night was a quiet one, just chilled in the TV lounge, spoke to a couple of people in there, not much tho - still seem to have clammed up.Went into town with Paul on Wednesday, he knew where a few places were so he was a handy tour guide, nice bloke too....didn't really do much else other than wander around the city...again! Got back to the Billabong at about 6ish, had some food and got chatting to an irish guy called Mick from Dublin. He's in Oz for a month visiting friends, he'd just been in Fremantle for a few days and was visiting Perth for a couple more. Kindly gave me a slice of his pizza ( I had intended to be healthy and just have the yoghurt and orange - oh well!). A trip to a local club was arranged for the night - place called 'Black Betty's', basically everyone paid $10 and this paid for a coach to the club and 2 hours of free beer or wine....no vodka tho :O( After not doing anything social for the last 2 nights I thought I'd get my arse in gear and meet some people.
Ended up going with Mick and on the bus we met a couple, Sarda a Kiwi girl living in Sydney and her boyfriend Darren, an essex boy who'd got residency coz of his relationship with Sarda. They were just in Perth on hols and were popping back to Sydney before travelling to London, good couple of people had a good chat with them. Darren was mentioning the scene in Sydney as far as bars go and then he started talking about Mardi Gras...I siad "to be honest that's one of the reasons I'm going"....so he kinda worked it out from there. Getting sick of having to not say certain things or just keep quiet when the guys around me are talking about how attractive some girl is. I know I should just be honest but when you're sharing a dorm with guys you just don't know how they'll react and it's not really worth the hassle, can't wait to Sydney when hopefully I'll be able to be more open.
Anyways, Black Betty's was ok - not the kind of night/place I would normally go to, kind of reminded me of a student night really. There was a live band and they were pretty good actually doing various rock covers. Luckily after the band they finally played some dance music so I had a little shimmy. Mick, Sarda, Darren and me all left about 1am, I wasn't too pissed as I'm not much of beer drinker but did have a couple of vodkas. Got back to the billabong and went straight to bed.
Thursday, finally opened a bank account so done all the things I wanted to do when I got to Oz. Also went up to Kings Park which is a huge park in Perth along the river, has fantastic views of the city so took loads of pics. Also looked into a couple of other backpackers coz I'm not sure the Billabong is the right place for me...found a nice place called Emporer's Crown which is kinda upmarket backpackers, but looked maybe too quiet so wouldn't be many people to meet. Think I'll see how tonight goes and decide whether to move or not tomorrow.
Plans for the rest of the time in Perth include staying in Fremantle for a couple of days, a visit to the desert to the 'Pinnacles' (you'll have to look on the net if you want to know what they are), stay at Cottesloe Beach for a couple of days and maybe stay in Scarborough. Absolutely none of that has been arranged yet so who knows what will actually happen!
