As discussed in my final road trip post, we were delighted to finally arrive in Perth after 36 days on the road, driving across the country. Upon our arrival, we hit the ground running as our first priority was ensuring that our car was up to snuff and we both started work basically immediately!

Our Car Drama and George to the Rescue

As I discussed in my last post, our car conveniently performed beautifully until we were 45 minutes outside of Perth. Let me remind you that our car was fully loaded with all our belongings, including George’s bike, three other suitcases, all of our camping gear, an inflatable paddleboard, and 2 boogie boards. On our road trip, we covered over 8,000 kilometers and were often driving in very hot temperatures. All things considered, we were thankful (and lucky) that our car lasted as long as it did before developing some issues!

George was able to take the car to the mechanic on the Monday that we got back, where we received a quick diagnosis that we would need new suspensions and new tires (as 3 out of 4 of our tires had become oval instead of round).

Our next task was getting our car ready for license plates in Western Australia. One headache of moving states in Australia is that all of the car ownership rules are slightly different, depending on where you are. In WA, all cars must undergo an inspection by a government-approved certified mechanic (often called “the pits”) in which the car must demonstrate that it has all of its original factory workings before it is approved.

As our car is a 2005 Mazda 5, we were a bit worried about this inspection as our car was so old. Our mechanic that fixed our tires and suspension did a pre-inspection check for us, and we quickly learned that we would need to fix one issue before our inspection. The issue was that our passenger automatic windows could not come up from the driver’s side, but worked just fine on the respective doors on the passenger side of the car. It was frustrating, and poor George had to do a ton of research, find a part at the wreckers, and then dismantle the car driver-side door to install it.

Once we believed that we were inspection-ready, George dropped off the car, and we crossed our fingers for a smooth inspection. Unfortunately, our car did not pass. This was because we learned from the inspection that in a previous life, someone had cut the connection to our car’s check engine light!

The 24 hours following the inspection were extremely stressful, but I was so impressed by George for his troubleshooting and problem-solving skills! Some of the steps involved included learning how to take off the front display of our car, calling the wreckers, watching several YouTube videos in Japanese to learn how to solve the problem, and finally finding a car electrician to attach a new LED light. If you would like a visual, think of George on the train going to the electrician, holding our car console (meaning the part of the car that has the odometer, gas gauge, and all the other meters), and sweating profusely.

Luckily, we did pass the inspection on the second try! We learned why the check engine light was cut out (due to an emissions issue the light goes on and off intermittently – not a problem), and as it was off during our inspection, it did not present a problem! We were so relieved.

To summarize, George really saved the day, and our car now has WA plates and is working better than ever! I won’t even get into how long George had to wait in line for the license plate registration, so that is a story for another day.

New City and New Work Beginnings!

I had planned on easing into work again after two full months off with some substitute (or as they call it here, relief) teaching for our time in Perth. However, I got a call from a high school wanting me to work in a science position (as I am trained in science) before we even arrived in Perth. I was very wary of accepting the contract for two reasons. One was that I wanted to know what I was signing up for, and the second was that I was terrified to teach high school as I had never done it before! While I have a lot of experience teaching Grade 7, which is high school age here, I was worried that it would be totally different than the elementary school setup I was used to.

I ended up coming to a compromise with the principal, that I would complete the week as a relief teacher to test it out, and then could stay longer if I decided that I wanted to. In the end, I did take the contract, and have been working at this same school all term. My last day there is next week, and it has been a really interesting experience filled with teenagers, uniforms that feel like they are from the 1980s, mullets, and giant jewel earrings (for everyone).

You’ll have to catch me in person to get a full lay of the land, but in short, I have learned a lot and had so much fun along the way. I also somehow managed to gain a Foods and Digital Tech class on my roster as well as getting some random relief classes throughout each week, so I feel that I really am getting a full taste of the high school teaching experience!

George has been such a good sport this year with all our moves and just getting any job as quickly as he can. He has been working in landscaping job in the parklands for the stadium by our house, and while it hasn’t been his most favourite job, he has been enjoying his 5-minute commute each way by bike. He also comes home with many, many stories, those of which I am sure he would be happy to share with you sometime over a beer or two.

Evenings and Weekends

We are living in a two-story laneway home in East Perth and are loving the location and its surrounding beauty. The Vancouver equivalent of the area would be similar to the False Creek seawall since we are close to the river which is perfect for walking, running, and biking. We are also very close to the East Perth train station, which is very convenient for getting around when we don’t need our car.

It has been fun getting to know the city of Perth and exploring the surrounding areas. Some of our favourite places besides the riverside paths by our house have been Scarborough Beach and Fremantle, which remind us of the beach areas such as Kitsilano in Vancouver.

Our exploration has been limited at times, though, due to the extremely high temperatures that have only really started to recede this week. For the first three weeks that we were living in Perth, the outside temperature during the day was frequently over 38 degrees, which made it quite difficult to enjoy being outside during the hottest parts of the day. However, it’s been a lot better lately, and we have been enjoying the constant sunshine.

We’ve been enjoying living in a big city again and have been trying to take advantage of it. We have tried to get out to many events that have been happening, including night markets, the Pink concert, an AFL game, and a cricket game, among others.

Socially, we have definitely been more active here, partially thanks to the fact that George has some connections from his time living in Whistler that made for some easy friends to adopt! I have also been shopping around for a run club and have found one by my house that has some really great people that I can run with on a weekly basis.

A final highlight from the last few weeks was that my family came out to visit and spend time with us, and while we worked, they went on their own road trip in Western Australia. I will get more into detail about what we got up to when they were here in my next post.

We have been enjoying the West Coast so far and definitely feel that living here has been such an interesting phase of our year in Australia. We are constantly delighted and surprised by the many things to do here, and are looking forward to our next couple of months in the sunshine. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more soon!