Perth

Start where Perth starts for most locals: Kings Park and Botanic Garden, one of the largest inner-city parks in the world, on the bluff the Noongar call Kaarta Koomba. The Western Australian Botanic Garden displays more than 3,000 species of the state's native flora, and the lemon-scented gums along Fraser Avenue frame the classic view of the skyline and the river. The State War Memorial sits at the edge of the escarpment, and the Lotterywest Federation Walkway lifts you into the eucalyptus canopy on a glass-and-steel bridge. The audio guides here cover both the memorial's story and the Noongar meaning of the hill, so the view comes with context.

Below the park, the city meets its river at Elizabeth Quay, the waterfront precinct that reconnected the CBD with the water in the 2010s. The Bell Tower rises beside it, housing the bells of St Martin-in-the-Fields from London — a curious gift that the guide explains better than the plaque does. From the quay, the foreshore path runs east toward Matagarup Bridge, whose arches sweep across to Optus Stadium; walk it at dusk when the river turns silver and the afternoon sea breeze, the famous Fremantle Doctor, arrives on cue.

Perth's central grid holds a compact set of nineteenth-century survivors. The Perth Mint has been pouring gold since 1899 and still does a live pour for visitors. A few blocks away, Perth Town Hall is the only convict-built town hall in Australia, and London Court is a 1937 mock-Tudor arcade that looks several centuries older than it is. These are short walks apart, and the guides stitch them into one story of a frontier town made rich by gold.

Cross the railway line and the mood changes. Northbridge was Perth's Little Italy and is now its nightlife and dining quarter, anchored by the Perth Cultural Centre. Here WA Museum Boola Bardip tells the story of Western Australia from its deep Aboriginal past to the present, and the Art Gallery of Western Australia holds one of the country's best collections of Indigenous art. Listen to the guides before you go in; they set up what to look for.

Half an hour down the river by train, Fremantle (Walyalup) is the port that Perth was built to serve. Fremantle Prison, built by convicts in the early 1850s and in use until 1991, is Western Australia's only World Heritage-listed building; its tunnels and torchlight tours are the highlight, and the audio guide tells the grim and occasionally absurd stories behind the limestone walls. Fremantle Markets have traded since 1897 under a Victorian hall, and the Round House on Arthur Head, the colony's first permanent building, still fires a time gun at one o'clock.

Eighteen kilometres off Fremantle lies Rottnest Island — Wadjemup — a car-free, 19-square-kilometre island of white bays that Willem de Vlamingh called a paradise on earth in 1696, naming it after the quokkas he mistook for rats. Cycle between beaches, climb to the Oliver Hill Battery and its two 9.2-inch Second World War guns, and let the guide tell the harder history too: the island was an Aboriginal prison from 1838 to 1931. Back on the mainland, Cottesloe Beach is the city's classic sunset strip, with Norfolk pines and Indian Ocean water that stays warm into autumn.

Perth is easy. Free CAT buses loop the CBD, Fremantle and Northbridge; trains reach Fremantle in about thirty minutes; and ferries cross from Elizabeth Quay to South Perth and from Fremantle or the city to Rottnest. Most of the central landmarks are walkable, so download the guides, pick a shoreline, and start listening.