Day 18 – Boomgates, Avocado Iced Coffee, and the Great Chicken Parma Hunt
We woke up a little sad to leave Perth, but excited to keep rolling eastward. Of course, Perth wasn’t going to let us go without one last parting gift: a head injury.
See, in Melbourne motorbikes can basically park anywhere short of your grandma’s driveway. Perth? Nope. Dedicated motorcycle bays only. Since the last 2 days we’d been in a hotel, I’d stashed the bike in an underground carpark across the street. Paid my ticket like a model citizen, rolled to the boomgate… and the machine was broken. Couldn’t reverse out (downhill exit), so I hit the intercom. Kind voice says, “All good mate, I’ll let you out.” Gate goes up. I scramble to shove the ticket back in my pocket before it shuts again, take off like a hero—only for the boomgate to come crashing straight down on my helmet. Luckily, my head was protected. Perth: 1. Me: 0.
Skipping breakfast, we rode 45 minutes out to Mundaring. This little town sits at the edge of the Perth Hills and is best known for its dam and historic gold pipeline that once supplied water to Kalgoorlie. Think leafy streets, fresh air, and the kind of “country charm” that city brochures overuse. Unfortunately, thanks to WA’s King’s Birthday holiday, almost everything was shut. Luckily, the state’s favourite café chain, Dôme, never sleeps. Brunch saved the day.
And here’s where things got fun. Noune ordered avocado on her chicken sandwich and an almond iced coffee. I went to place the order, but apparently my vocabulary refuses to store the words “almond” and “avocado” at the same time. So yes, I asked for an avocado iced coffee. The server looked like I’d just invented the world’s worst hipster drink. To be fair, I wouldn’t be shocked if someone in Fitzroy tried to sell it for $14.
Next stop: Meckering. This tiny wheatbelt town is famous for the 1968 earthquake that rattled Western Australia (magnitude 6.5). A lot of the cracked-up remains are preserved as a sort of outdoor monument to tectonic chaos. But our real reason for stopping? The Big Camera Museum. From daguerreotypes to digital, it’s a shrine to photography’s greatest hits. I even spotted gear I’d used in my youth, which is a nice way of saying, “Wow, I’m old.” After geeking out, we rewarded ourselves with hot chocolate from Magnitude Sweets next door.
From there, we made a quick 15-minute hop to the Cunderdin Museum. Or rather, the closed Cunderdin Museum. Because, apparently, public holidays are the perfect time to lock the doors and keep paying customers outside. Makes sense if you’re allergic to money, I suppose.
So, we shrugged it off and pressed on to Merredin, the biggest town between Perth and Kalgoorlie (population just under 3,000, so “big” is generous). Merredin is a wheatbelt hub with a long railway history—once a critical water and refuelling stop for steam trains. Today? Let’s just say it’s quiet. So quiet that Google Maps decided to add some “off-road adventure” by sending us on 5km of gravel instead of the shorter 1km option. Thanks, Google.
Our accommodation was a rented bedroom in someone’s house. Tiny but clean. Dinner options, however, required detective work. Google claimed multiple eateries were open. Phones rang out. Riding into town, we found empty streets and dark shopfronts. Ghost town vibes—until we stumbled into the shining beacon of the Merredin Hotel. And bless them, they were not only open but buzzing.
Dinner was lemon-lime bitters (riding rules, no booze) and the holy grail of Aussie pub dining: chicken parmigiana. Five variations, no less. That’s how you know civilisation still exists. Full and happy, we rolled back to our little room, ready for reading, blogging, and hopefully an early start tomorrow.