Capital P

Pam and I experienced some culture shock from our hotel room in Perth.

On the afternoon of December third, we rolled into town amongst more traffic than we’d seen since leaving Sydney. That evening we checked into our hotel in North Bridge, which was directly across the street from the RAC Arena where Kevin Hart was performing a stand-up act, and there were thousands of people coming and going from the show.

But before we got there, we paid Vic and Sue at SBR Off Road a visit to introduce ourselves, and give them a rundown of our Bumblebeast. SBR would be reviewing the axle installation that was done back in Kununurra, and installing a few mods we’d looked forward to for a long time. Everything was on track and we promised to return early the next day for the work to begin.

As planned, the next morning I went to drop off the Jeep, while Pam went to her Genius Bar appointment at the Apple store to have her phone’s screen repaired and her watch submitted for warranty work (the roads aren’t just rough on the Jeep!). I spent nearly 30 minutes chatting about Canada and our adventures, and Jeeps with Vic at SBR, and managed to meet Pam at her appointment. Apple took her phone to replace the screen, letting us know we could collect it the same day, but refused to service her watch, and she is still fighting that decision today.

We decided to have breakfast at the Mount Street breakfast bar and it was mind blowing! This was a far cry from our protein shakes or bowls of Muesli beside the Jeep in the dusty outback. So the city has its ups and downs… traffic and people on the one hand, and all the products, services and amazing breakfasts you could want in the other.

The last of our benefits from Sydney life were our Hoyts Cinema credits, and they were burning a hole in our collective pocket, so we went to see the Happy Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them, following a Ramen dinner at Ippudo that night. City life!

King’s Park hosts Perth’s Botanical Garden and War Memorial, and was highly recommended by many, so we walked there from our hotel. It reminded us very much of Ottawa’s Arboretum, but with all kinds of trees and flowers we’d never seen before. When we got to the top of the main Promenade, we spotted the visitor’s center and found that a free guided tour would begin in 15 minutes and decided to join. Our guide was a retired teacher who was very friendly and knowledgeable. The weather was perfect for a stroll in the park looking at all kinds of flowers, trees, plant life, and birds.

That night we went to a place called Old Faithful with craft beers and a Reuben sandwich that knocked my socks off, and planned what remained of our big city visit.

The next day we caught the train to Freo (Freemantle), where the Maritime Museum was our first stop. What an incredible place – we only spent a few hours but I could’ve spent the day!

They had a complete history of the discovery of Australia by people from many different countries, as well as nautical history during wars and immigration, but mostly some fantastic exhibits surrounding various shipwrecks, including a partial reconstruction of the Batavia and the complete restoration of a historic steam ship’s engine.

However, my favourite part of the visit was chatting to a volunteer staff member about the Dutch East India Trading Company. He clearly had a thorough understanding of their whole history, and it touched upon some of the wreck exhibits they had on site, and he talked about the big business of spice trading and all the piracy on the open ocean in those days. His stories brought history to life, and made it exciting! I wish I’d gotten his name.

Following the museum Pam and I shared a seafood lunch at the fish market, where we also spotted a monument to Bon Scott of the rock band AC-DC, before starting a small pub crawl.

We visited the Little Creatures brewery, where the server put every single one of their beers into my tasting.

Next up was the Sail & Anchor Brewery, and after stopping at a local chocolate shop for a tasting, we only had room in our bellies for one more pub, and found The Monk a short walk away. They served a tasting paddle full of all different flavours of cider, which Pam opted for while I had the usual. We enjoyed both to the last drop before catching a train back to the CBD.

By now the Bumblebeast was ready so we went to collect it. It turns out that the Kununurra garage had installed the new axle housing properly, but they’d done such a poor job on the differential that Vic had to replace the ring & pinion gears. All of the mods we requested (One of which is the new hood louver, pictured below) were installed without issue and the Jeep looked better than ever, aside from the damage done to our flare by the Repco in Carnarvon, but that’s another story. After some friendly banter about Canada and well wishing, the Bumblebeast was back in our possession and we went back to Freo.

This was a short day because we needed to escape the city and get to our next campsite before sunset. First we returned to the hotel to gather our few well travelled belongings and check out, and then drove to the Freemantle markets. We scoured the many aisles, and tasted a few treats before sitting down to delicious banh mi for a late lunch. After eating we stopped at the Norfolk hotel for what was to be our last beer in Perth.

Perth is a city of over 2 million people (Perthlings?). It’s big and clean and friendly and they have a wonderful approach to life on this side of the continent. Lots of people make a big deal of how remote this city is from so many other places, but it’s crazy how many other places you can see within a long-weekend road trip from here too. On this visit we’ve completely missed the city’s many beaches, Rottnest island and the Quokkas, and lots of other attractions I’m sure, so we definitely need to return one day.

That night we made camp at Martin’s Tank. It was one of the closest campsites to town, and one of the few sites with availability, now that school holidays had begun.