Discovering sun, sea and sculptures in Perth
In Dorothea Mackellar's sunburnt country, Perth has one of the most extreme cases of the affliction - an average of 265 days of sunshine a year.
Some admissions and omissions: this is a travel story about Australia's most remote capital, but we never made it into its city centre, although nobody seemed to think we had missed much. And we never made it as far afield as the Margaret River, which did appear to be much more of an issue.
We had three days, we were staying on the beach, and it was March - which in Perth means unbroken, scorching sunshine in a cloudless sky. Venturing inland seems foolish.
We were in Perth for the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, which brings 70-odd often rather strange artworks and installs them along the sands and grass banks around the surf club at Cottesloe beach, a patch of sand Perth people are inordinately proud of. Western Australians respond in their numbers, and thronged the sands the whole time we're there.
It's clear, though, that they need little excuse to do so. Nearer to East Timor and Indonesia than it is to the eastern seaboard cities, Perth has a very different feel to Sydney and Brisbane: but it shares that love of the coast and the sand.
Every morning, before the sun rises high enough to make it too draining a prospect, and every evening, as it sets brilliantly across the Indian Ocean - and the sunsets are remarkably special here - they are out in their hundreds. They jog and walk along the oceanfront path, or in the crisp but beautifully clear sea, navigating around "the pylon", a giant concrete bollard in the sea, painted in Cottesloe surf club colours, and the last remaining part of a shark net system set in 1925.
We're staying at the Ocean Beach Hotel, an iconic Cottesloe beachfront pub with rather tired accommodations. Unaccountably, the architect designing it decided to grant the sea views to the stairwell and elevator shaft. Never have I stayed somewhere with such pure acoustics: I could tell you precisely when the chap in the room above decided to pass water, and how long it took him. This only provides an extra nudge to get out there with the locals and enjoy the Vitamin C boost. So take several dips in the sea and trots along the coast as read.
But note that they do food and coffee surprisingly well here. Night one, we eat at a reasonable Italian place in the middle of Fremantle, watching the crowds and the street performers wander past. Fremantle is to Perth what Newtown is to Sydney - the slightly arty, alternative suburb just down the coast from Cottesloe; there's a strip of cafes, a couple of brewpubs, street performers, and the giant Little Creatures brewery, which is worth a look for an afternoon ale.
There's a fine lunch at Bib and Tucker, the beachfront restaurant owned by local Olympians Eamon Sullivan (swimming) and Steve Hooker (javelin) where the crispy Clarence River school prawns are a highlight but everything is done rather well. Our favourite may be an Italian breakfast place called Il Lido on the Cottesloe front, where among the offerings are home-baked doughnuts and some great beetroot smoked trout.
Having proven unable to stitch a Margaret River trip into the itinerary - see the previous mea culpa - we do manage to include, instead, every local's favourite daytrip, a visit to Rottnest Island, or of course, as the locals have it, "Rotto".
As the only island on this chunk of coastline, it's also the place where everyone takes their boats. It's a strange place: a fast ferry takes you across in about 40 minutes, they hand you a three-speed pushbike and - like hundreds of others - you spend your day cycling around this often quite-barren and virtually car-free island, looking at quokkas (Rottnest is so named because it was discovered by the Dutch seaman Willem Vlamingh, who mistook the quokkas for giant rats and calling it rat's nest), stopping off at one of the 63 white-sand beaches and then heading back to the main town. We were advised to head for the packed bakery, whose owner must surely be a millionaire, and eat the Rotto pie. It was very pleasant, I can report.
Perth is home to Mick Fanning. It's also home to Surf WA, who conduct surf lessons from nearby Trigg Beach (again, this is another patch of perfect white sand). Every instructor is already out with a school of grommets, so we get the president, a cheerful unflappable chap who tells us: "Don't worry, anything you do out there I've seen it before". Then I manage to run off the end of my board like a sprinter. "Haven't seen that before," he says.
Then to tick the last "iconic Australian activity box" remaining, it's to Caversham wildlife park, a lush spot in the sprawling Whiteman Park, 30 minutes from town, devoted to native species. Keeper Andrew gives us a thorough, fact-laden and very engaging tour which starts, of course, with their colony of koalas. It's a hot day, so they are happily drinking direct from the keeper's hosepipe and entirely unperturbed at us leering at them from a distance of 50 centimetres. Then to the kangaroos, many with joeys in their pouches, who lope up to eat from our hands and lounge in the sun. We time our run perfectly for their version of a petting zoo, and get to scratch the belly of a fat, smelly, and happy wombat called Neil, who is reclining in the arms of a keeper like an overweight baby.
Time is up. Rain has never looked even remotely likely, although we may have spotted one or two wispy clouds. It is raining when we land in Auckland.
Perth is such an incredible city. What’s your favourite thing to do when you’re visiting Western Australia’s incredible capital?
Please let us know in the comments below.
Written by Steve Kilgallon. First appeared on Stuff.co.nz.
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