The Perfect Day in Perth
Cramming Perth's must-do's into one day
✒️ Written by: Abbie
Spending a whole month in Fremantle was brilliant for many reasons: the beach, the sunsets, the family time. But only having this brief time in WA, we couldn't ignore the big city of Perth itself. Not wanting to cope with city driving on too many occasions, we did our best to fit as many Perth highlights into one single day. And honestly? It worked a treat. I undertook a pretty hardcore afternoon of planning—mapping out how to get from one place to the next, and which order to attempt it all in. It was shaping out to be quite an intense day, with a slightly early start, but in the end we had time to spare and didn't feel too rushed at all. Here's how it went down.
We started the day at Heirisson Island in the middle of Swan River. Arriving on the island via the exit lane of the bridge-stroke-highway, we parked up in the central car park and could choose to explore either the top or bottom of the island first. Considering the main pull of this place was kangaroos, we ultimately chose poorly when we decided to walk round the top first and later realised all the kangaroos were in a fenced sanctuary down the bottom. But not to worry, along the north of the island we saw tons of tiny jellyfish skirting the riverbank, a couple of cormorants, and a handful of rainbow lorikeets. Not to mention, we got our first view of the seriously cool Matagarup Bridge, which made the engineer in James nerd out. The photographer in James then got this brilliant shot below.
By the time we made our way into the fenced off kangaroo haven, the day was warming up rapidly even though it was only about 10am. All the dawn kangaroos had stumbled off into shade. We did, however, manage to see one chilling out in the bush, so the mission wasn't a complete failure. We could already feel ourselves burning, so hurried back to the car and made our way to our next stop.
Kings Park and Botanic Garden is a Perth highlight: a gorgeous green area filled with plants, trees, picnic areas, water features, art installations, and other must-photograph hotspots. Nestled next to the city centre and riverbank, it's the perfect city escape. Along with the State War Memorial viewpoint looking out across Perth, it truly is worth a visit. We walked round as much as we could tolerate in the April heat, then found a nice shaded spot to sit and eat our picnic lunch. Side note: my egg mayo sandwiches were probably the best I'd ever made, and received compliments all around. After lunch, the Philbricks showed off their gymnastics skills on the picnic lawn (a classic Philbrick activity), and then we padded back to the car for our next Perth adventure.
Parking up in city centre, we first checked out the Art Gallery of Western Australia, which was good but a little too modern art-heavy for our liking. With free entry though, it made for a good break from the autumn heat. We treated ourselves to ice creams and cold drinks after that, and walked through the city, past the cathedral (which was closed, annoyingly) and over to the Perth Mint.
It had taken some convincing for me to add the Perth Mint into our itinerary, and I ultimately swapped out the science museum for it. But my God, was it worth it. The Perth Mint dates back to 1899 and still makes legal tender gold coins today. It is the first and only mint in Western Australia. We were taken on a tour of the mint, which included a live demonstration of casting a gold bar. It was amazing to see liquid gold being poured into the cast, and very bright! The tour also showed us the largest gold coin in the world, which is one tonne and depicts a kangaroo on one side, and Queen Elizabeth II on the other. This coin has broken the Guinness World Record for size, and is worth $1 million Australian dollars in legal tender, but is really worth a lot more than that. A couple other bonus points from the tour was we got to touch a real gold bar (through a hand-sized hole in a secure screen and cage), and also each got a souvenir (fake) gold coin pressed before our very eyes.
After the Perth Mint, we walked down to Elizabeth Quay on the riverfront to catch the last of the daylight and find something for tea. This area is insanely cool and was the perfect vibe at this time of day. We walked round the quay, hanging from arty sculptures and sitting on hippo statues, before making our way across the bridge to The Island restaurant.
It was dark by the time we finished up, and the quay was just as stunning at night. We walked back through the city to the car park.
With one final trick up my sleeve for the perfect Perth day, we diverted on the way back to Freo and drove across the river to see the curvy Matagarup Bridge once again, but this time all lit up. It was even cooler at night. I'd call the day a win, and an epic way to spend 12 hours in the city of Perth.
