The Suitcase Backpacker

Pesky flies, dive-bombing birds, and scenic nature walks

. . .

Western Australia

5 min read

On Saturday November 5th, Guy Fawkes night in the UK, I began my long anticipated journey to Aotearoa New Zealand. I had applied for the working holiday visa months before through a travel company called BUNAC, where I’d booked a week of information sessions, a few trips, and 12 months of support for the duration of my visa. This would be the first time I had done anything like this, so I was a bit nervous about it and I knew I was going to feel more at ease with a support system in place for the year ahead. I settled with BUNAC because their prices were within my budget; I found some other working holiday travel companies to be quite expensive.

Anywho, on to the travelling part! So this was my first time in Western Australia, and it was short and sweet (4 days to be exact). I wanted to break up the long flight to NZ by stopping in either Singapore or Perth. I settled on Perth, deciding to stop in sparkling Singapore on my way back to the UK.

After 12 hours of flying, the plane nosedives into a smoothish landing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (I would love to scratch Malaysia off my world travel map, but don’t think this really counts as visiting the country if one doesn’t actually leave the airport..) I had about an hour and a half to get to the next connecting flight which gave me some time to mildly recover from the never-ending turbulence of the first flight. Unfortunately I was quite ill…which is British for ‘I was throwing up and retching all over the place’. I was also quite ill on the connecting flight, but thankfully it was just a 6 hour journey and I couldn’t have jumped off the plane fast enough. Stupid motion sickness. It’s an actual curse for someone who loves travel. A kind Malaysian hostess took pity on my pale sorry state as I stumbled down the aisle, and handed me a medium sized bottle of water that was reserved only for the business class (economy got the miniature version..hm no wonder I didn’t have enough). Boy did I need that. I was so grateful and so thirsty, and done with flying..all this turbulent weather had to happen right now.

Perth was beautiful, despite those annoying flies that I swear were purposely following me every time I walked through Canning River park. Nobody else I saw seemed to be swatting at flies like a crazy person…just me! Could really have used my old Australian fly-hat-net thing right about now, but unfortunately that didn’t make it into my overpacked suitcase. Perth was nicknamed the ‘City Of Light’ in 1962 when American Astronaut, John Glenn, flew over Perth and its people, and the city lights twinkled back. I would have liked to see the city at night, however, being a solo female traveller I preferred not to venture out alone during the evenings. I can imagine this cosmopolitan waterside city looks stunning during twilight hours.

I was staying in this spacious and cosy rental unit by the Canning River that I had booked through Airbnb. The hosts Mike and Li were really lovely and welcoming – they gave me a bottle of wine! We had a nice chat about things and it turned out that Mike was originally from NZ, so it was great to hear him talk about the place and chat about what my plans were. He told me that a lot of kiwis tend to leave New Zealand to find work in Australia, make lots of money, then head back to NZ later on in their lives.

During the second day I walked to the nearest shopping centre to grab some food and sort out a sim card so I could use google maps to get around. Using my UK sim was eating all my travel credit. I managed to get a pretty good deal of $30 for 30gb of data for 1 month, in sterling this is about £16.50. I found the Aussie sim deals and public transport costs to be wayyy more affordable than what I was used to paying in the UK. On my way back to Li and Mike’s place I was walking beneath some trees when some sort of squawking bird dive-bombed the back of my head. Initially it took me a good few seconds to realise I was being attacked! I had been in my own little world of daydreams. Gutted I forgot to mention this to Li and Mike, aha I’m sure they’d have known what it was. I didn’t even look behind me…literally just ran off petrified! Welcome to Australia..ay.

Li was really helpful and gave me some advice about bus tickets, so I ended up getting a day pass on my third day which meant that I could hop on and off the Transperth buses to my heart’s content. Which btw, I found to be very efficient and not too pricey either in comparison to the overpriced and collapsing public transport system back home in the UK. I managed to explore Fremantle, Cottesloe and Elizabeth Quay. I thought Cottesloe was a beautiful area, and probably super expensive too! The streets and neighbourhoods reminded me of the American looking suburbs from the movies. I strolled to the beach and sat on a bench for a while enjoying the sunny views, and melted into the sounds of the ocean. 

Walks along the Canning River were quiet and scenic. Of course I kept a vigilante eye out for snakes every time I saw a warning sign, thankfully I didn’t stumble upon any! To be honest I’ve yet to see any snakes in Australia except for the time I went to a sanctuary zoo that had them back in Adelaide in 2020, but definitely not any in the wild. During my last day in Perth my hay fever allergies were quite bad, so I was itchy and snivelling all day long. It was a beautiful sunny day though and I was trying to make the most of it. Earlier on I’d gone for a walk along the Canning river trail which literally looked like the skin of a snake with all these cracks weaving through the tarmac – I called it snake hide path.

Later on, I sorted all my washing out as Li and Mike kindly offered their washing machine to me free of use. The weather was so nice and I wanted to make the most of it, so I sat on the grass reading my book, Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The latter half of my last day was spent trying to squash everything back into my suitcase…I didn’t seem to organise it very well this time around because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this hard to close when I left the UK!