Perth is a very popular holiday destination for Singaporeans. We decided to bring baby to Perth for his first holiday by plane. His previous holiday was to Clubmed Bintan by sea and he loves it so much. Click to read the post here. Australia is an ideal destination for young families because it is easy to move around in rented cars and it is fairly near to Singapore; just a 5 hour plane ride away. Most tourist attractions closes at 4 pm or 4.30 pm; so that leaves you with more than half a day to chill and relax in the comfort of your apartment.
Air travel for the first time
Here is our short itinerary:
Day 1 – Reach Perth. Short drive to Mandurah. Overnight stay at Sebel hotel.
Room in Hotel Sebel
Day 2 – Continue drive to Margaret River. Overnight stay at Margaret River B&B
Room at Margaret River B&B
Day 3 – Fun day at Sunflower Animal Farm and short tour at Cape Leeuwin lighthouse. Overnight same as above.
Day 4 – Drive to Bunbury and visit Berry Farm, Ngilgi Cave and Cape Naturaliste lighthouse. Overnight stay at Mercure Sanctuary Golf Resort (warning: they expect you to fix up the baby cot yourself)
Room at Mercure Sanctuary Golf Resort
Day 5 – Visit Busselton Jetty. Overnight stay at Mounts Baywater apartment.
Apartment at Mounts Baywater, Perth
The spacious living room and kitchen
Day 6 – Freemantle Prison and Weekend Market. Overnight stay at Mounts Baywater apartment.
Day 7 – Spend the whole day at Caversham Wildlife Park. Overnight stay as above.
Day 8 – Lunch at Chinatown, Perth. Visit Synergy Parkland and Kings Park. Flight home.
As you can see from above. The itinerary is rather short – we deliberately make it so. We spent most of our time shopping in supermarkets such as Coles and Woolsworth.
Supermarket shopping
If you have brought a baby overseas, you will know that you need to pack a lot of stuff. You need enough change of diapers, milk bottles and bottle detergent (the apartments do not provide dishwashing liquid), milk powder and rice cereal, baby stroller and baby carrier (we brought tula to bring him to underground cave; which is not accessible by the stroller). Initially, we brought along a mini rice cooker to prepare porridge for him. But we ended up serving him Heinz baby food because it was more convenient.
Preparing a meal for baby
Safe in daddy’s chest
Tula into Ngilgi cave
The Ngilgi cave is a very long underground walk. Be prepared to bring a bottle of water and wear light clothing. The humidity underground is close to 90%. At the end of the tour, we were panting away.
Wefie in the cave
My handphone couldn’t capture the low light condition in the cave. So you might want to bring along your DSLR and external flashgun. The stalacites and stalamites were beautiful.
Me catching berries at the farm
There’s nothing much to see at the berry farm. Most tourists go to buy the wine, jams and other produce. We brought a set of strawberry wine, jam and sauce.
Beautiful skies at Busselton Jetty
The Busselton Jetty is another popular place for tourists. At close to 2 km away from land, it is one of the longest jetty in this part of the world. There’s also an underground aquarium where you can have a close up view of the marine life.
Baby looking at the fishes
The marine life at Busselton Jetty
And our shadows unite for a wefie
Sleepyhead again
Cape Naturalise Lighthouse
Outside Freemantle Prison
Freemantle Weekend Market
Nothing much to buy at the weekend market. We got some street food and a set of engraved pens.
The descendent of the Toad King
Outside Caversham Wildlife Park
Feeding free roaming Kangaroos
A mummy and her joey
Taking photos of animal at the park
This is at Sunflower Animal Farm
See the nice horns
It’s 20 degrees here in May
The best emotions are caught on a handphone camera
Strolling at Synergy Park
Travelling with his Samsonite Junior
The Samsonite junior was bought at $15 during their sale… mummies are good at it.
Keeping him entertained is not an easy task
Sleeping soundly in his SQ bassinet
Some pointers to note if you are travelling to Perth for your next holiday
- Bring along toothbrush and toothpaste. The hotels and apartments do not provide these.
- Pack extra clothes for yourself and junior. My baby vomited on his way to the airport and I had vomit on myself as well.
- Bring along an extra powerbank, USB car charger and backseat organiser with toys to keep baby happy. Optional extras would be some music CDs, a portable car tyre pump; in case of tyre puncture and a handphone mount for the dashboard – for viewing of your GPS.
- Some hotels restrict your WIFI data to 150 MB per day (Mounts Baywater is one of them). Turn off your google backup to prevent auto backup of photos via WIFI.
- While you are on the go, and if you are not using GPS, turn on airplane mode to conserve battery
- I would think its a good measure to bring along both handphone and DSLR (or any decent camera) to capture photos. Handphone to capture candid moments, food and hotel rooms etc. DSLR to capture wide angle, zoom in onto animals, night scenery and low light conditions. But honestly, it is quite heavy to bring along a DSLR… much less a Manfrotto tripod. There are too many stuff to bring along… you need to compromise. The baby stroller is bulky enough as it is.
- And if you can, do not check in your baby stroller on the flight. Get one that is foldable and small enough for hand-carry. We check in our stroller on the flight and the handle got dislodged and one attachment got broken. So we folded it and took it on board the cabin ourselves on our flight back.
The handle got broken
It is such a short trip but so much to bring
Hi can I check whetee you bought the cap and warm gear for your baby? I’m also travelling to Perth in Aug and have my 10months old then
Hi Lynn, do you mean the frog beanie? I bought it at the Sunflower Animal Farm for Aud 17. I bought a sheep beanie for myself too.
The warm gear is bought by my husband during his travel to London. But you can buy similar in winter wear section in department store. Or taobao is another good option.