First weeks in Perth, Australia

I finally arrived to Perth, Australia at the very end of October. The flight from Bali was quick and there were no problems in customs - I had declared my bees wax products and all of my shoes that had to be disinfected on a special mat on arrival. One 15 min uber to the city centre, and there I was.

It felt a bit surreal. On my first time arriving to Australia the flights took so long that I was exhausted. Now I was full of energy and ready to see what Perth had to offer to me.

Getting to know Perth

On the first day I found a good spot to sit down with a laptop and got to work. I opened up a bank account and got myself a phone plan. I reserved some more nights from another hostel nearby and realised the struggle I was facing with finding accommodation. Everything was booked. I could only book one night from here and another from there. The following weeks were going to be tough.

I ended up changing hostels just once and staying at the second choice. I did have to check out every other day and ask for cancelled beds in the morning. I always got one, and after a while I stopped worrying about not finding a place to stay.

In a week I had already made so many new friends at the hostels. My first friend Jay was with me in the same room at Kangaroo Inn, the first hostel. With her I ended up booking a Rottnest Island day, but I'll write a separate post about our trip there.

Later at Hostel G I met so many wonderful people, whom with I had many dinners in great restaurants around Perth, and hopefully will have many more. For example, I have always enjoyed boba tea, but with new recommendations from my new friends, I started enjoying it even more. I don't even know how many boba teas we have ordered to this date.

From the day of my arrival I made clear to myself that I wouldn't spend the whole day inside stressing about finding work and arranging my life. I needed to trust that everything will always end up fine and enjoy as well. This is why I usually started my days with doing something fun. I walked a lot. I walked around the city and every day chose a new area to explore.

On one day I walked around the Swan river that flows through Perth and saw the Matagarup bridge, the Optus stadium and black swans. Next on the route were Heirisson Island and its kangaroos and great views to Perth skyline.

Next day I walked my way to Kings park and Elisabeth Quay. It is a huge park with great views across the river and Perth CBD buildings. I saw many beautiful picnic's being arranged here - there are multiple companies you can hire picnic sets from. If you are arranging a bigger party, they will come and set it up for you as well.

Later I returned to Kings Park again with a couple of friends and went to see the instagrammable blue boat house close by. It was a blue boathouse. Very pretty, but the lines to take a proper instagrammable picture were so long, that we just sat down on a bench close by and enjoyed the view.

One day I took the train to Fremantle, a small town with a harbour and beautiful old decorative houses. I went to the Fremantle market that has been in the same place since 1897.

One day was dedicated to roaming around the multiple art exhibitions and museums around Perth. The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) is free to enter and had multiple amazing and interesting exhibitions. I will definitely go again.

Right next to AGWA I found another free entrance exhibition by Perth Institution of Contemporary Arts and popped in.

And again, right next to the two exhibitions above was the library and the Western Australian Museum Boola Bardip. According to the museums web page, Boola Bardip means 'many stories' in Whadjuk Nyoongar; the Country on which the Museum sits. The museum is a place where people can find the various stories about Western Australia. Perth is located on Whadjuk land - Whadjuk are the Aboriginal Australian from the Western Australia region.

Getting a job

After two weeks I had already applied to so many jobs. My plan was to stay in Perth until I received my bank card and then make my way to Melbourne. This plan changed multiple times in a day, as I talked with other people. Sometimes I was buying a car and driving with it... somewhere, sometimes flying to Darwin instead of Melbourne, sometimes I was booking a train (until I realised that the only train out of Perth is about 1300 dollars), sometimes... who even knows any more.

In the end, faith intervened and the only job I applied in Perth contacted me and offered me a job for three months. So I took it. Three months more time to settle my thoughts and decide what to do. And it was an interesting job as well - I got to work at an international language campus in Perth as an admin coordinator helping both the academy and the accommodation teams.

Getting an apartment

After starting at my job the next thing was to find a place to stay. I paid flatmates.com for their 10 days fee and started searching and sending messages. As previously mentioned, the housing situation in Perth was, and is, a mess. A lot of hostels and student accommodations have gone down during covid, and now that the borders are open and a lot of backpackers and students have returned, everyone is struggling to find a place to stay.

The flat inspections I went to, were always done as solo inspections, but the landlords were interviewing multiple candidates in a day and choosing the best ones. Mine took four tries - but I was lucky. On a Saturday night I was up after midnight surfing on the internet when I suddenly got an automated message about a room that might suit me. I immediately sent a message through the website and got an invitation to come and see it the next day.

I got the room on the spot and was relieved. It was amazing, my flatmate was so nice, and we took a walk together immediately to see South Perth. The location was perfect and I was so happy.

What's next? Maybe I'll get a car. Maybe I'll buy a flight ticket to Melbourne. Sydney seems to be calling me as well. Maybe I'll plan something totally different, but for now, I will enjoy the soon-to-arrive summer weather (probably by the time I publish this post, summer has already arrived since now it is still veeeery cold as in 15-19 degrees Celsius).

I'll soon tell you more about all the amazing places I have been to around Perth!