A Perth-ect Monday

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We arrived in Perth on Sunday afternoon and wandered down to Beaufort street for dinner. Surrounded by theaters, shops, and restaurants, we chose a burger joint called “Meet and Bun.” Dad and I both ordered the Breaking Bad Burger and some smoky fries, basically fries tossed with salt and paprika. I also ordered a cookies and cream milkshake, and this was probably my favorite meal we’ve had on the trip so far. The burger was 100% locally sourced and the milkshake tasted like heaven. Dad really liked the fries, though I found them to be a little heavy on the paprika. After dinner, we headed back to the apartment and went to bed. 

On Monday morning, I was up by 4am.. that darn time change. By 7:30am, Dad and I were both up and ready to go, so we grabbed a bus to Elizabeth Quay to do some exploring. When we got off the bus, we headed to the Visitor Center but realized we had an hour to wander before they opened at 9am. We walked farther down the road to the jetties to walk along the coast. Perth has this really fascinating bridge with these arches diagonal to the pathway and on either side. It almost seems like they are holding the bridge up, though the bridge seemed too sturdy to be held up by these arches and strings. (Mom and Grandad, I’m sure you would have found the engineering of the bridge quite interesting, I wish I could explain it even more!!)

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After a while, we made our way back to the Visitor Center for some guidance about what to do for the day. We discovered that they offer a free walking tour of Perth that started at 9:45am!! The word FREE really stuck out to us because we wanted to limit our spending for the day in preparation for Tuesday (more about that later). We booked our Tuesday activities and headed to the meeting place for the walking tour. 

Sweet Ray was our guide for the walking tour that began promptly at 9:45am. What was supposed to be about an hour and fifteen- or thirty- minute commitment ended up being over two hours long, but there were no complaints from us! Ray took us through the city of Perth, showing us the government buildings, the museum being renovated, the remnants of the Fringe Festival, and lots of historic locations. While I appreciate a good self-guided, go at your own pace tour, seeing the city through the eyes of a local is the best way to go. Not only did we get the historic descriptions of what we were seeing, but we also got the local opinion and some additional commentary that you can’t get from a guidebook.

The tour ended in Elizabeth Quay, conveniently where Dad and I started earlier. With some suggestions from others in our mind, we decided to take the *free* 935 bus up to King’s Park and the botanical gardens. Upon arrival, we grabbed a quick lunch from the café and ate under the shade of the trees in the area. After lunch, we walked to a pathway overlooking the Swan River. King’s Park has a beautiful WWI and WWII memorial with the river in the background.

We walked through the botanical gardens for a little while, intending to only go to Mount Eliza’s lookout until something called the Glass Bridge caught our attention. From Mount Eliza’s lookout, we got a panoramic view of the city skyline, the river, and some more suburban areas. We continued to the glass bridge and saw a more forested area from the top of the bridge.

After seeing all we wanted to see, we called an Uber back to the apartment for a quick nap and to get ready for Dad’s lecture later in the evening. After the lecture, we went through the Hungry Jack’s drive-thru (the Australian version of Burger King)!! If you know me, you know I was thrilled!! We went back to the apartment and packed our bags for our Tuesday activities. Pictures (and lots of quokka selfies!!) to come!