Our Amazing Family Adventures in Perth WA

When we visited Perth WA in April 2017. It was the first time that any of us had visited so it was a completely new adventure for us!

We arrived after a brilliant but very long flight with Qatar Airways, and were greeted by my husband’s best friend from school who had emigrated with his family as a 12-year-old boy! A wonderful way to begin the trip. A big smiley welcoming face and a huge grin on my husband’s face!

We pre-booked a maxi taxi for this trip to get us to our accommodation at Baileys Motel. Situated on the outskirts but within walking distance of Perth city. The Motel was great. We had booked two rooms for the 6 of us, they were a perfectly adequate base for all of us. They have a lovely restaurant on the premises. There’s a bottle-o with a fish and chip shop inside right next door plus Dominos Pizza and Subway are a 5-minute walk away maximum too. We were not out on our own without any food.

Day 1 in Perth

Perth was wonderful. The very first morning we walked into the city along the Swan River. The kids had a play in one of the many parks dotted around the city too. Then as we were walking right on the river side a pod of dolphins decided to just out of the river to greet us and welcome us to Perth! Amazing sight, and completely unexpected! Sadly the dolphins were a little camera shy and every time I tried to catch them on camera, they disappeared! Luckily for me, the Lorikeets were more than happy to oblige!

Day 2 in Perth – A trip to Freo

My husband’s friend and family came to meet us and we got the train down to Fremantle. The train station was a 5-10 minute walk from the motel. The train was an amazing price of AU$12 for a family day ticket. Fremantle was gorgeous! It’s somewhere I want to spend more time in next time we visit the land down under. A Very chilled vibe, and it has a bit of a reputation for being quite a hipster town.

There’s lots of craft beer available, street art, and a gorgeous beach, as well as being steeped in history. We visited Fremantle Prison, we didn’t do the tour as we only had such a short time but did get to see quite a bit of history and even the kids were interested, well worth a visit if you are ever in that part of the world. The other highlight of Freo was the fish and chips!

Day 3 in Perth – Kings Park

Day 3 was an epic walk up to Kings Park. It was well worth the hike, but man was it a hike! The views of the city from up there were amazing. Such a beautiful, new, shiny city and to be in such lush, green surroundings. We all enjoyed it. We did the treetop walk, our eldest son is petrified of heights but we somehow managed to convince him to have a go too! Well worth it! Luckily after our huge hike up, we did find that there was a bus back down into the city!

Day 4 in Perth, WA – Herrison Island

Our 4th and final day on this leg of the Perth journey happened to land on Good Friday. Unlike the UK closes everything on Easter Sunday, it turned out that in Australia they close everything on Good Friday instead. We were very limited as to what we could do, as well as the fact that there is a 10-20% price increase on almost everything because of the public holiday. If you like a drink, a lot of places in Perth, WA at least will only serve alcohol with a meal on Good Friday. From what I understood 2017 was the first year that that had happened for a lot of places. Before this, it had been a pretty much dry day.

So we spent day 4 over at Herisson Island, we walked there too as the other thing we found with the public holiday was that public transport was at a minimum. The walk wasn’t too bad, and we got to see the WACA in the distance much to my husband’s delight! Herisson Island is home to a Kangaroo sanctuary. We hoped to see lots of ‘Roos but it wasn’t really the case, we saw a couple. According to all reports it varies from day to day, some people see lots, the next none! It was nice to see them in a somewhat natural environment alive and kicking though and the kids were really impressed!

After Herisson Island we walked back into the city for a final time. The kids had a play in the BHP Billington water park in the city just off Elizabeth Quay. It’s a brilliant splash park where the kids could run and burn a bit of energy off in and cool down and we could have a sit-down and rest our feet before heading back to the motel!

Lots more still to explore

So overall after our first trip to Perth, WA we all decided that it was not our last, we all would love to go back and next time we will make sure we visit Rottnest Island, as well as take a trip further up the coast towards the Ningaloo Reef.

I’m pretty sure the husband and his friend and now my friends and the kid’s friends don’t want to leave it another 28 years to see each other so we will be back soon.

Thanks for reading so far. I have tried to be as comprehensive as possible despite taking so long to get around to writing this!

Leave me a comment and let me know if you’ve read this and if you can recommend anywhere else for me to visit on the next trip to WA please let me know!

For more of our Travel adventures check out this page.

Becky x