For our final night in the motorhome we decided to return to Fremantle, this is the place that we ended up after arriving in Perth airport 27-years ago with nowhere planned to stay and jumping on the first backpackers bus that ended up taking us to Fremantle as opposed to Perth which is where we thought we were heading.
Fremantle is in many ways a suburb of Perth although it is termed as a city in its own right, it is well known for its laid back attitude and proximity to the Indian Ocean at the mouth of the Swan River and in terms of ‘western’ history is where the first Swan River colonists settled. Following the advent of penal transportation to Australia Fremantle became Australia’s primary destination for convicts who played a large part in building the original buildings still to be found in Fremantle and Perth.
Returning our motorhome to Let’s Go Motorhomes was a bittersweet moment; on the one hand we were looking forward to a hotel room with air conditioning and en-suite bathroom and on the other hand we have had a great time in our little mobile home and have traveled 4700km exploring Western Australia.
Perth, the City of Lights – as we discovered during our visit to the Carnarvon Space & Technology Museum Perth was given this moniker following John Glenn’s first orbit of the earth by an American in 1962 when Perth residents and businesses turned their lights on and shone torches through the night so Perth could be the only Southern Hemisphere city that could be viewed from space. Perth itself couldn’t be a greater contrast to the rest of Western Australia, there is no better example of this than its population density; Perth has a population density of 359 people per square kilometer whereas the state of Western Australia that we had spent our last 4-weeks traveling through has a population density of 0.2 people per square kilometer! For us this came with the benefits of the hotels, restaurants, bars and entertainment but the shock of having to watch for traffic, cross roads, avoid people (and ensure we looked presentable!). The jewel in Perth’s crown though is Kings Park & Botanic Gardens which advertises itself as one of the worlds largest and most beautiful inner city parks; based on my experience I would find it difficult to argue with this description.
Aside from treating ourselves to one of our best meals in Australia at Balthazar we also enjoyed an evening of comedy at the Comedy Lounge Perth’s Gong Show. The premise of this show being that twenty new comedians would each have a 3-minute set with the audience being given the opportunity to have this set cut short (and the gong sounded) should they not be deemed to be funny enough. Suffice to say the standard was mixed, there were perhaps three or four who I would say were reasonably good and between eight and ten who were awful but it was a fun evening and a great atmosphere.
We were advised that a ‘must do’ trip from Perth was to travel by ferry to Rottnest Island to see the quokka’s. Situated 19km off the coast of Perth, Rottnest (or Rotto as the locals call it) is a protected nature reserve that is home to the quokka that is a small rotund marsupial. The tourist websites would have you believe that the quokka is an adorable, cuddly little animal and this is an example of being creative with the truth when it comes to marketing! In my view it is nothing more than a mangy overgrown rat that deserves to become extinct. If you look past the tourism smoke and mirrors and take the time to look at the history of this island you will discover that far from being an island full of cuddly little creatures it was in effect the Alcatraz of Western Australia and for a long time was a place of pain and suffering. From 1838 until 1904 the entire island was used strictly as an Aboriginal prison then becoming a forced labour camp for European and Aboriginal prisoners until 1931. I enjoyed our trip to Rottnest as an opportunity to understand the history of the island and respect those who suffered there, the quokka’s can be consigned to history.
Time to leave Western Australia, next stop Singapore.