Perth, the capital city of Western Australia, sits along the banks of the Swan River. The Swan River flows west into the Indian Ocean.
The first item on our agenda was to figure out how to get up to the town of Exmouth, gateway to the Ningaloo Reef, our first of three planned destinations on our journey through Oz. When I look at the continent, I see a dog's head. Perth sits on the "dog's mouth" and Exmouth sits on the "dog's nose."
Uluru (Ayers Rock), in the center of the country, and the Great Barrier Reef , along the northeast coastline, were the other two major points of interest. In a country the size of the continental United States. We had 4000 miles to cover. On a budget and in a foreign land, we also had a lot to figure out in our "no plan" plan.
Jeff and I took another walk through town to check into renting a car. But before taking care of business, we made arrangements to meet with our new friends, Jaime and Laura, at our hostel. (Jaime and Laura were on the train ride with us.) We explored Perth and ended up back at their hotel on the Swan River to make some phone calls. Being Australians, they helped us ask the right questions about car rentals.
It turned out, renting a car in Australia is very expensive, and the drive we were planning to make was a long and lonely one across the western outback, 9 hours to be exact. It was going to be like driving from Los Angeles to Eureka, CA, almost to Oregon. So Jeff and I decided to fly north to Exmouth. Once we were there, we would have to figure out how to get to Uluru and then to the Great Barrier Reef. But no sense worrying about the cursed how's in a "no-plan" plan.....yet. We were still enjoying the beautiful city of Perth.
