Western Australia – Perth and the West Coast

Perth western Australia, has to be our favourite city so far. The free bus gets you to most places and the rest of the transport system is really good.

We found a street which is designed like an English Tudor street and it even had a British shop where we got Wotsits and Frazzles, (hmmmm comfort food).

We walked along the Esplanade and the Bell Tower and took a walk up the hundreds of steps to Kings Park. Kings Park is not only beautiful in itself but has the most amazing views over the city, Swan River and the ocean.

We had hired a campervan, from ‘Wicked Campers’,  which we planned on driving up the west coast. What a disaster … after several hours of waiting we finally got our not so “wicked” camper.

The company had over-booked so they had cobbled together two smashed up campers. It ran, but only just. Half the stuff was missing and the entire back end was caved in. After a lot of stress, bad directions and bad road signs, we managed to drive it out of Perth.

Several hours driving later, we made it to Kalbarri, where the whole town shut at 6pm (and we arrived at 6.30). What is it with these Australians. Luckily we were full from lunch. We eventually managed to find somewhere to sleep and continued on the next day to Monkey Mia.

Monkey Mia is a resort in the Shark Bay national heritage area. We stopped at Shell Beach, a beach made entirely of shells and a beautiful stretch of water  called Little Lagoon. Everywhere is beautiful; crystal clear water and white sandy beaches. The snorkelling is really good, there are so many fish (even sharks and stingrays).

On our first day snorkelling we saved a sea turtle that had become trapped between two ropes holding a boat.

The dolphins come up to the beach every morning and the Monkey Mia keepers feed the 5 adult dolphins. It was good to see them in their natural habitat and great to see they’re not forced to come to the shore every day. It was nice watching them play and seeing all the young trying to get attention. We spent most of our time snorkelling and laying in the sun and we took a walk along the beach at sunset, following the dolphins.

After 2 nights at Monkey Mia we watched the dolphins one last time before attempting the drive back to Perth in the cobbled together camper we had nicknamed Dorothy.

The van, Dorothy, decided to break down so we called Wicked Camper recovery who just told us to drive to the next town (Duh!), which happened to be Perth and 300 km away.

THEY ONLY DO RECOVERY IN TOWNS ??? So valued customer, breakdown in the outback and you’re on your own. Thanks Wicked Campers … we won’t be back.

Rob managed to fix the van enough for us to get back to Perth, but as it was after 6, (everywhere closed), we had nowhere to stay. We eventually found a hotel in CBD and tried to de-stress. We abandoned our Wicked Wreck, in a car park for its last day and walked round Perth.

We found a campsite and stayed there for our last night. The camper was so bad, and the smell was so terrible we only slept in it for 2 nights.

Before we flew out of Perth, we got the train to Kwinana to visit some of Kirsties family. We had lunch and they showed us around the nearby town of Mandurah. We enjoyed ice cream and sat by the river, feeling really happy.

Perth is a beautiful City and Monkey Mia is superb, we wish we could have spent longer there and we decided that our favourite place to live, so far, would be either Cape Town or Perth.

Sadly, we can’t recommend Wicked Campers not just because of the wreck they charged us full price for, but also their complete disregard for customer service and the stupidity of their breakdown recovery people… Avoid at all costs.

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