PRETTY PERTH BUT NOT QUITE PARADISE. (Perth (Australia))

Member Name: purplegirl1989

Product:	Perth (Australia)
Date:	11/06/09 (14 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Kings park, Free Buses, Cheap trains, Good Cafes, Clean City, Nature, Shops, surrounding beaches.

Disadvantages: Quite far from the beach, the people aren't as friendly as some other places i've been.

Perth is the city I've recenty spent about 3 months in. My review will of course be different to others, and that's because I always seem to have the craziest of experiences. I wonder has anyone else stayed at East Backpackers in room 7, next door to the Russian cleaner lady? One night (the walls are fake so we hear everything) she decided to count all night for instance. And I mean all night.. (three in Russian is the same as English!) And then we moved to Aberdeen Lodge, in Northbridge which is like a homeless shelter to be honest before moving on to our cleaning job in Exclusive Backpackers. (Two hours a morning scrubbing mould off the men's showers anyone?!)

Anyhow, on to the actual city. Firstly, as it was my first visit to Australia, I had the idea that we would be seconds from the beach. It's not quite like that in Perth, as its quite far up the Swan river- which is amazing in itself (although it is filled with jelly-fish!). The nearest beach to us was Cottlesloe which was about 15-20 mins by train. Train prices, by the way are very good, with a day rider being 8AUD in the week and 4AUD if you're with another person to get a 'Family Rider' on the weekends/holidays. Anyway, back to Cottlesloe, we thought it was a great beach, nice sand, good facilities etc but was rather crowded. We heard that Fremantle was amazing and we discovered that the town was actually but the beach just seemed to be a square outside of McDonalds. To get to the decent beach, you either get the train to North Fremantle and walk 5 mins or catch the CAT bus to South Fremantle. Then you get to the kinda beaches I'm talking about! Miles of sand with hardly another person in sight.

Actually, that leads me to talk about the buses in Perth. Now they're fantastic! Free CAT buses run regularly throughout the CBD, although they are usually really over packed and so the secret - if you're in the free transit area- is to just hop on any TransPerth bus going your way, again for free! Now I've never resented bus drivers back in the UK so much as I do now!

Perth City itself is great for shopping and has numerous cafes, restaurants and bars to keep you entertained. One of the best things though is King's Park, its free to get to (bus 37), under 10 mins from the centre and is on the hill overlooking the city. You get fantastic views of the city lights at night and beautiful greenery to chill to in the day. And its the perfect place to have a BBQ- automatically heated BBQS are everywhere and are free to use... note: just consider the prices of the food first though, as that can get rather ridiculous!

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Perth, but just remember they call it an isolated city for a reason, in my case three months was more than enough.

Summary: Great place to visit if you can.