November 24th, Perth

Okay okay, I’ll give it a shot. Writing a journal about my ‘adventures’ in Australia.

I arrived in Perth yesterday, and finding a way to the city was the first challenge. From where I exited the airport, there was only one bus heading to the city, so I took my chance and hopped on. Well, I dragged myself and my way too heavy backpack to the busstop and crawled in the bus, taking the first seat available. Then the next challenge was finding out at what stop I had to get off. I asked some other tourists where they were going – they weren’t going where I was going. Then a local came to sit next to me and I asked her what stop I should get off to be as close as possible to my hostel. “You have to get off right now.”- she said, right when the bus was making a stop. She was very helpful, I don’t remember her name though.

Alright, so I was walking around in a country I’ve never been to, in a city I don’t know anything about, in 33 degrees Celsius, with my 15 kilo backpack, sweating my ass off, trying to find this damn hostel. After only fifteen minutes of strolling around in Perth I already found my hostel. Once I arrived in my room I had the third challenge: fitting my backpack and all my other valuables into the locker, and making sure that I can reach all my most important stuff easily, without having to rearrange the locker every single time. I did not succeed. But anyone who knows me a little knows that this kind of stuff is not one of my strong points.

A few moments of clearance came to me on that first day. Why did I do this? What kind of idiot randomly books a ticket to the other froggin’ side of the world without any plans except a hostel for 5 nights? It’s scary. Really scary. Who knows where I’ll end up? I might be back in the Netherlands in a month.

Then a thought popped into my head: “I got a reply from a ranch in the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago but never replied – stupid me.” So I connected to the hostel WiFi and wrote an email to this ranch – The Horse Resort in Margaret River, only 270 km south of Perth. I got a reply pretty quickly asking whether I could come visit them soon. So now I’m planning my trip to Margaret River by bus as I wait for a reply to my question whether I would be able to stay the night.

I was knocked out in my bed by 9:30PM.

Now today. I woke up at 5AM, got out of bed at 6:30AM (I refused to get out of bed before 6:30), had some breakfast and then headed out to the city. I walked through the shopping streets, bought a cap and a SIM card, and then walked towards Bell Tower. Bell Tower itself isn’t very spectacular in my eyes to be honest, it’s just a tower that isn’t even that high. Maybe the story behind it is really cool…

After this I did the most tourist-y thing I have ever done: I did a Hop On-Hop Off bus tour through Perth. It was actually quite spectacular! Seeing all of the city’s highlights within 2 hours on the top deck of an open bus is not something I’ll complain about. When I got off the boat I was hungry and especially thirsty, so I grabbed a Coke and a sandwich and sat down at a table overlooking the Swan River.

After my little city adventure I returned to the hostel only to find out that my two new roomies were Dutch! We socialized a little, walked towards the city center again, did some grocery shopping and went back to the hostel.

So as I’m writing this, I’m sitting on the balcony with my laptop and some hostel-people around me, enjoying a cold beer on a summer night, enjoying life, but also kind of worrying about what I’ll do tomorrow.

Author: Celestine

Just a random girl that quit college to chase her dreams. View all posts by Celestine