June 2017. No snow, as it turns out — just grey skies, cold weather, and a genuinely crisp winter in Western Australia. After Singapore’s permanent heat, grey skies were the whole appeal, and a good break from city working life.
About five hours from Singapore to Perth, then further south-west from there — a fantastic journey, and a road trip with plenty of driving and adventure. Nine days, 17 to 25 June:
Day 1 — flew from Singapore Changi to Perth City Airport, arriving at night, stayed over at Piara Waters.
Day 2 — drove from Piara Waters to Margaret River, stopping along the way at Bunbury and Busselton.
Day 3 — a full day at Margaret River.
Day 4 — drove from Margaret River to Denmark, stopping at Bartholomews Meadery.
Day 5 — a full day at Denmark.
Day 6 — drove to Albany, then back to Perth City.
Day 7–8 — two full days in Perth City.
Day 9 — a late-morning flight from Perth City Airport back to Singapore Changi.
The whole trip — flights, lodging, food — came in just under SGD 2,000 per person. More on the specific places and adventures from this itinerary in upcoming posts.
Lodging was all through Airbnb — decent finds throughout, and genuinely pleasant to book and communicate with hosts via the mobile app. First night’s stay at Piara Waters was a good example of what to expect. More on the actual lodgings in later posts.
What I remember most is the driving itself: long, quiet, scenic Western Australian roads, some so extremely long and straight you can barely make out where the horizon actually ends and the sky begins.
It was a genuinely exhilarating road trip in a sturdy, trusty KIA Carnival, rented from Thrifty Car — hassle-free pickup and return, even though we couldn’t get our original booking for a Hyundai iMax. No complaints, and I’d recommend their service regardless. (If you want a comparison between the two cars, there’s a KIA Carnival vs Hyundai iMax comparison video worth a look — glad the Carnival did us well for this trip.)
The Carnival itself: 8-seater, automatic, petrol, a relatively reliable road-trip tourer, with just enough boot space for 7 passengers once one rear-row seat folded down — 2 big bags, 1 medium, 2 small, a Quechua 50-litre backpack, and a couple of hand-carry bags.
What’s a holiday without moments captured — even if it ends up an unintended one? Pictures are worth a thousand words, and while being there yourself always beats looking at photos later, it’s genuinely worth capturing the memorable moments to revisit down the line. With how far photo/video tools have come, there’s really no excuse not to.
For me, it’s the iPhone 7 Plus — every image-capturing feature I need, plus a huge range of apps for processing afterward, doubling as both a full imaging tool and the main communication/internet device, without the weight. A far cry from lugging around a bulky digital camera like my old Canon 350D, still sitting unused in its dry cabinet back home — needing constant care and maintenance for a device that only does one job, when the phone in my pocket does that and everything else.
To round out the kit, with aerial photography becoming genuinely accessible, I added a Parrot Bebop 2 drone to the collection. The remote controller is just your phone with the right app rather than a dedicated joystick controller — one less thing to pack.
And here’s the group — seven travellers who made the trip genuinely good company the whole way.
It was, all told, a genuinely good time together.
