Perth Scavenger Hunt and Self-Guided Tour

The route: from Elizabeth Quay past the cathedrals and the Mint to East Perth

10 stops · about 42 min walking · start: Spanda · finish: Notting Hill Bench

The hunt starts at Spanda on Elizabeth Quay and follows the riverfront past the Talbot Hobbs Memorial to the Bell Tower. You then head up into the city to St George's Cathedral and Perth Town Hall, continue east to the Royal Perth Hospital Museum, St Mary's Cathedral and the Perth Mint, and finish in East Perth at the Notting Hill Bench near Queen's Gardens. Every answer can be read from sculptures, walls and windows, so no ticket desk stands in the way, and if East Perth is closer to where you are staying, the app can begin at Queen's Gardens or any other stop and sort the rest of the route for you.

Open the route map ↗

1. 

   1SpandaStart

   Spanda, a 29-metre sculpture by Christian de Vietri, rises over Elizabeth Quay, the waterfront precinct opened in 2016 where the city centre meets the Swan River. Its white arches grow out of one another like ripples, and its name is a Sanskrit word for the pulse or vibration of the universe.

2. 

   2Talbot Hobbs Memorial

   This memorial honours Lieutenant General Sir Talbot Hobbs, a Perth architect who commanded Australian troops on the Western Front in the First World War. He died in 1938 on his way to France for the unveiling of the Australian war memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, and the city raised this memorial by the river in his honour.

3. 

   3The Bell Tower

   The Bell Tower, opened in 2000, houses the Swan Bells, among them twelve historic bells from St Martin-in-the-Fields in London that were given to Western Australia for the Australian bicentenary in 1988. Its glass-and-copper spire rises about 82 metres above Barrack Square on the riverfront.

4. 

   4St George's Cathedral

   St George's Cathedral, the Anglican cathedral of Perth, was designed by the Sydney architect Edmund Blacket and consecrated in 1888. Look at its red-brick Gothic Revival walls with pale stone details; the bell tower beside it was added in 1902 as a memorial to Queen Victoria.

5. 

   5Perth Town Hall

   Perth Town Hall, completed in 1870 at the corner of Hay and Barrack Streets, was built with the help of convict labour. Look up at the windows of its clock tower: a popular local story says the convicts shaped them like the broad arrow printed on their uniforms.

6. 

   6Royal Perth Hospital Museum

   Royal Perth Hospital grew from the Colonial Hospital that opened on this site in 1855, which makes it one of the oldest hospitals in Western Australia. Its small museum, in a heritage building of the hospital, tells the story of medicine and nursing in the colony and later the state.

7. 

   7St Mary's Cathedral

   St Mary's Cathedral on Victoria Square is the seat of Perth's Catholic archbishop. The first church opened here in 1865, a Gothic sanctuary was added around 1930, and a major rebuilding completed in 2009 finally joined the old and the new parts under one roof.

8. 

   8The Perth Mint

   The Perth Mint opened in 1899 as a branch of the Royal Mint, to turn gold from the Western Australian goldfields into sovereigns. Its original limestone building on Hay Street makes it one of the oldest mints still working, and gold coins and bars are still made here today.

9. 

   9Queen's Gardens

   Queen's Gardens in East Perth were laid out at the end of the 19th century on old clay pits once used by brickmakers, which became the park's ponds. Look for the statue of Peter Pan among the trees, a copy of the famous one in London's Kensington Gardens.

10. 10Notting Hill BenchFinish

    The last stop is a park bench in East Perth, close to Queen's Gardens, that goes by the name of the Notting Hill Bench. Sit down for a moment and look back over the green and quiet streets you have just crossed.