The West Coast

Beautiful Perth

Last week was 'sportlov' in Sweden so we took a week off here as well and traveled to Perth and the West Coast of Australia.
It's a pretty long flight, 5 hours,  from the east coast so most tourists don't make it there and Perth is called the most remote capital in the world. Capital of West Australia that is.
We managed to hit an extreme heat wave week. Autumn was supposed to start but we reached 41 degrees at the top with an average of maybe 35. Puuh, sweatty!
We had two base camps during the week, first three nights in Busselton, a seaside resort two hours south of Perth and then four nights at Scarborough Beach which is a popular beach area in the north eastern parts of Perth

Busselton Pier

Busselton showed to be a nice but somewhat sleepy town characterised by an almost two km long jetty reaching out in the sea. The water is very shallow so back in the days they needed this distance from the shore in order for the ships to dock. Nowadays it is a tourist attraction with a sea life center in the end where you can go down and watch the ocean life from big windows. Like an aquarium but from the inside.

Lamb racks with local beer at Cheeky Monkey

Mammoth Cave

Busselton is located on the edge of Margret River which i think is the second most important wine region in Australia. Of course we spent one day lurking around some wineries. Unfortunately I have to say I'm getting a bit tired of this. It's so standardised and all wineries have exactly the same ads, wine and dine, exclusive wine tasting and fine dining etc. They also always say 'buy our wine at cellar door prices', which mean you pay a price much higher than THEY would ever be able to get in a store with competition. But the food we had at Cheeky Monkey brewery (and winery) was really good.

Lovely west coast beach

In the Margret River region there are also a lot of famous limestone caves. We chose Mammoth Cave and that was well worth the efforts.

Margret river is also a popular surf spot as the waves are quite big in the sea here.

Prison cell. In use until 1991!

Perth showed to be a nice city with fantastic beaches very close to the central parts. The most famous ones are probably City beach, Cottesloe beach and Scarborough beach were we stayed. They are all amazing and it's not difficult to find your own little spot. It's a quite special feeling looking out and think that it's open sea all the way to Africa. Beautiful sunsets as well.

Outside Perth there is the smaller city of Fremantle, a charming town which was once the first settlement on the west coast. They have a prison built at that time that we visited and that was really fascinating and frightening. It's hard to imagine the terrible life inside those walls. And the most scaring thing was that the prison was in operation until 1991! Still with the same cells.

Little Creatures logo

No visit to Fremantle is complete without going to Little Creatures brewery. As you know Little Creatures is my favourite aussie beer. The brewery was a bit smaller than expected and we didn't go for any tour but they have a restaurant which showed to be really good. I also bought a six pack of the six different sorts they produce and there is no question that it is the big seller Little Creatures Pale Ale that you should go for. Pretty damn good it is!

Outside Perth there is also a small island, Rottnest, that is a must to go to. There is, almost, no car traffic on the island so what you do is that you rent a bike and cycle around. Also on Rottnest there are a few really nice beaches and you can also snorkel. The island has got it name from the quokkas, the cute animals that you see everywhere. They are actually marsupials like kangaroos, but the first Europeans thought they were giant rats.

Quokkas

So what's the verdict on the west coast. Well in general I think it's a bit more relaxed. People are friendly. Beaches are wonderful. Great wines (and beer) are produced at your doorstep. Roads are excellent. What more could you wish? Would be a nice place to retire.

 Cheers!