Tiger was a fine airline besides the fact that you have to walk so far outside to get to the plane and it was freezing both times and when we were taking off it was drizzling. Also the times of our flights were somewhat unusual. We left Thursday night at 10:45 and got in at 1 something Perth time which was 2 hours behind Melbourne time and therefore 12 hours different than the states which was pretty crazy.
I went with Devon and Caroline two of my friends in the Butler program. We stayed in Scarborough beach which is a suburb about 15 min outside the city on the Indian ocean ! ! ! ! We got a nice little villa which was really nice except that we didn't figure out how to work the heat until the last night so it was pretty chilly at night. Since we got to the villa at around 2am we just went to bed. We also woke up early the next morning because we got free breakfast at the resort but it closed at 9 so we didn't get much sleep.
We then went on a walking tour of the city of Perth that was in Caroline's guidebook. It was hard to figure out where we were going because the book was not that descriptive. We also ripped out the walking tour section so we didn't have to carry the whole book but when we ripped it we had little parts that didn't rip with the main part and since it was pretty windy those got lost along the trip haha.
The people in the city were really helpful and would come up to us and ask us if we needed help. There is pretty big rivalry here between the east and the west coast and so people normally talk down Perth a great deal. I really liked the city though. It reminded me of a mid west city. It was not as busy as Melbourne and had more of a charm about it. I thought it was a much prettier city than Melbourne but I am not sure I would want to study there. It was pretty dead outside the central business district.
So even though i was skeptical of our walking tour we did see most of the city sights. I guess the most famous one is the new bell tower. We then hiked up a huge hill to get to King's park which is on top of the hill. It was really manicured with the grass that is like the lawns in Shaker Heights and had a cool view of the city. Since we had been walking for over two hours and our car was parked back at the beginning of the tour we caught a cab to take us back to the car and to have lunch. We had an awesome lunch at a cafe we had found that morning when the girls stopped to get coffee. We then drove to Freemnatle for the afternoon.
We were really tired when we got to Freemantle so we drove around a bit and then stopped at the markets. O I should add that we got almost every idea on our itinerary from these girls i was talking to in tutorial. This one girl saw I was looking things up for perth and she grew up in Perth and her parents still live there so she started listing all of these things off. I actually took notes because none of us really knew what to do. Her suggestions were awesome and so one of them was to go to the markets.
So at the markets we decided we should get food because we had a kitchen in the villa and an oven since the unilodge apartments where the americans live don't have an oven we really wanted to bake. So we got a lot of fresh vegetables and cheese and stuff for dinner. Then I noticed on one of our maps of freemantle it had this free bus tour. So i was suggested we do that but then the girls pointed out to me that we did have a rental car so we didn't really need to take a free bus tour haha. SO we then went on "my bus tour" which involved me telling Caroline where to turn so that we followed the route of the bus tour. Haha it was pretty funny, we got lost a bit but overall we did see more of the city so it worked out.
We then went to Little Creatures Brewery which is an Australian company and the Brewery was in Fremantle right on the water. We stopped and walked around and it was pretty cool. They didn't have a tour though even though we thought they might.
The next day we had to wake up early to call the ferry company to see what times the Ferry left to go to Rottnest Island. Rottnest island is a 30 minute ferry ride from Perth. We decided to go on the 9:30 and we barely made it because our free breakfast was pretty slow and we took too long getting ready. Once we were on the island we had to figure out what we wanted to do. We decided on the bus tour haha which was pretty cheap. The info lady suggested we do the loop once without getting off so we could figure out next time where we wanted to stop. The only difficult thing about the bus tour is that once you got off at a stop the next bus was not for an hour. So we couldn't make that many stops. The loop took 45 minutes and we all planned out where we wanted to get off and then we went to go have lunch in the main harbor area.
The island is pretty small and it is a reserve so there are only a couple buildings and they are all in the main port area. Its not like a island in the Caribbean because it is not an actual city it is only set up for tourists. There are only three places to stay and a handful of shops and places to eat. After lunch we got back on the bus and we had time for two stops. The first stop we got off at was Parker's Point. On the way there a little boy on our bus kept asking the driver where the Quokkas were. The Quokkas are little animals on the island and they are somewhat hard to explain. They are somewhat like a miniature kangaroo but also like a rodent. Not like a gross rodent they are super cute. Well we had yet to see one and then I saw one passing as we were on the bus. The lady in the next seat over said not to worry we would see plenty once we were out. At our first stop there were a couple just in the little paved area. So first I took pictures far away but they seemed pretty friendly and interested in us. I then got down and did some dogs sounds and two of them came hopping over to me. So i petted them and they were fine with that and then one started licking my hand. So then we all started petting them and taking pictures. They were quite interested in my bag but they weren't looking for food. And then i put my camera down and they were very interested in that. It was funny to see them move because they can hop or they can run and they somewhat interchange. We finally tired of playing with the Quokkas and went to a lookout over the water and then down to the water. It was pretty chilly but people were surfing and snorkeling. We then walked three of the bus stops because they were close together. Our second stop wasn't as nice but we just sat on the beach for the hour. All of us passed out on the ferry back. Once back in Freemantle we went to a didgeridoo shop. A didgeridoo is this Australian instrument that is big in aboriginal culture. It is made out of Eucalyptus wood that the termites naturally eat out. Caroline wanted to get one and the guy in the store all gave us a quick lesson. After Caroline got her didgeridoo we went back to the apartment to make dinner.
The next day we got our free breakfast at the hotel and then walked down to the beach which was 80 meters from our villa. There were a ton of surfers including some surf schools and so we just sat and watched them for a bit. Apparently surfing is a winter sport here because the waves are bigger.
We then went to the Indian tea house in Cottesloe which was another suburb on the beach. My Aussie friend recommended it and so we decided to check it out. It was a huge restaurant/tea house right on the beach. The architecture and design of the building was really cool and it had amazing views. So we sat outside and had our tea and then got back in the car to drive to the Pinnacles national park. It was roughly a four hour drive out in the middle of nowhere. Perth in itself is the most isolated city in the world (fun fact I know). On our way we stopped at a little cafe for lunch and bounded upon an old car show in Gigi Australia I think haha. Our GPS then took us on some dirt roads for more than an hour where we did not pass or see any cars. We also had less than half a tank of gas so I was pretty stressed. We finally made it to the park though and did a little walk through the desert and then you could take your car on a loop around the pinnacles area as well. The pinnacles are limestone rocks that are in the middle of the sand and seem to come out of nowhere. I can't really tell you much more about them because we didn't really go into the lodge thing to learn about them.
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