Perth 2022 Day 1: Arriving in Perth

 DAY 1: 9 JUN 2022

Maple trees at Yanchep National Park

After more than 2 years of Covid-19 pandemic, I finally travelled overseas again!

The borders were slowly opening worldwide since late 2021 and many of my friends started travelling overseas.

I was getting burnt out from work which made me want to travel overseas really badly and I am thankful to my friends for agreeing to travel with me!

This trip, we travelled to Perth, Australia!

We flew Scoot and we paid approx. S$380 for our return flight which included a 20kg check in baggage only on the flight back to Singapore.

Awesome deal right?

Prior to our trip, we had to complete some applications/forms:

1. Notarised vaccination certificate

If you have been vaccinated, you can visit notarise.gov.sg to get your vaccination certificate notarised.

2. Australian Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) a.k.a. tourist visa

The ETA application process is way simpler now as it is done via the ETA app which can be downloaded from your mobile app store.

The cost of the ETA is 20 AUD.

It took me about 5 minutes to submit my application and the approval email was sent to me within a few hours.

3. Australia Digital Passenger Declaration (DPD)

All travellers arriving by air must complete this declaration form 72 hours prior to departure.

You could either fill in an online form or complete it via an app which you can download.

I filled in the online form as I had a copy of my vaccination certificate in my laptop.

The process took less than 10 minutes.

ART tests were not mandatory during our visit as the Australian government removed this regulation in Apr/May 2022.

 

After a 5 hour flight, we safely landed at Perth International Airport at around 8.30pm.

We cleared immigration quickly despite being the last few passengers to disembark the plane.

Thereafter, Michelle and I activated our data sim cards while connecting to the free airport wifi.

I got a 40 GB Optus 27 days data sim card from ICC for $20 during a Shopee flash sale.

As my sim card had an Australian number, I was required to fill in quite a lot of details for card activation.

Because of that, it took me about 10 minutes to get the card activated.

With our data sim cards all settled, we made our way to our accommodation in Perth CBD.

Initially, we wanted to take bus 380 but the next bus was only arriving at 10.17pm which was another 45 minutes wait.

Michelle saw that there was a rideshare option, DiDi, on Google maps.

Eventually, we decided to take DiDi as we found a promo code online that gives us 30% off for 5 rides and we will reach our accommodation before 10.30pm as compared to the bus.

After a 20 minutes car ride, we arrived at Travelodge hotel, our home for 2 nights!

We booked a room with 1 queen bed and 1 single bed for 187 AUD per night.

Upon checking in, we immediately dropped our bags in our room and left to get dinner.

Most shops and restaurants close early in Perth and we were only left with either fast food or kebabs in our neighbourhood at this hour.

We went with kebabs, which was a 10 minutes walk from our hotel.

meat box at Newroz Kebabs

At Newroz Kebabs, we ordered a chicken kebab and mixed meat (lamb & beef) box to share.

These items cost 31.50 AUD in total.

I guess we were tired and hungry so the food tasted alright to us.

We popped by a grocery store next to the kebab shop as we intended to get a bottle of mineral water since Perth's tap water has a bit of chlorine taste.

However, the prices were inflated and we decided to get a bottle of flavoured sparkling water as it was the cheapest option.

The hotel gym has a filtered water machine so we decided to use the machine as our main source of drinking water during our stay at Travelodge.

And that's it for day 1!

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Click here for our Day 2 adventures!

- - - - - - - - - - - -