healthy things to do in Perth

Perth: the place for outdoors-loving, nature-needing beach babes

As I write this, I’m in my hotel room in New York, enjoying the eighth week of an amazing trip of a lifetime in North America. I feel very grateful to have gotten the opportunity to be able to do so much travelling with my hubby while we are both so young. However, being away from home has made me a little homesick as I realise what a truly wonderful place Perth really is.

So, here is a list of my favourite healthy activities to do in my home town: Perth, Western Australia. If any of my readers are planning a visit, I hope this list will give you a few ideas of ways to have fun and keep yourself feeling your best!

1) Enjoy coffee at a coastal cafe followed by a walk. This is one of my favourite things to do with my girlfriends. The views are stunning. My dog Happy loves to come, too! I recommend you check the wind on seabreeze.com before going, as Perth can be a very gusty place at times. Generally it’s less windy in the morning, but it may pick up in the afternoon. My favourite beachfront cafes are Yelo in Trigg, Voyage Kitchen in Sorrento and Burns Beach Cafe in Burns Beach.

healthy things to do in perth

Walking along the path near Voyage Kitchen in Sorrento.

healthy things to do in Perth

This photo is taken walking from Mullaloo towards Burns Beach.

2) Eat at one of the many healthy cafes. Two of my favourites are The Health Freak cafe (in three different locations) and Solomon’s Cafe. Solomon’s Cafe is the gold standard of health food: all organic, dairy and gluten free. It is also a little fancier; however, it can be more expensive and the sweet treats are much smaller. The Health Freak cafe does great priced and delicious tasting sweet foods. I also really like their zucchini fritters with salmon.

health freak cafe

Chocolate protein cake from The Health Freak Cafe.

3) Go for a lovely nature walk at Perry’s Paddock. This is a very popular dog walking and jogging spot in Yellagonga Regional Park. It is a large paddock and has a few historic house ruins in it. It has no sign but you will see all the cars pulled off the road along Ocean Reef Road, just west of the Wanneroo Road intersection. In the late afternoon, it seems there are always people taking their wedding photos, too.

Perry's paddock wanneroo

Taking my puppy to Perry’s Paddock for his first outing.

4) Picnic and walk around Kings Park. Kings Park is one of the world’s largest inner city parks. There are 400 hectares of manicured lawn, beautiful gardens and native bushland to explore. If you’re after a challenging workout, try a few repeats of Jacob’s Ladder and the Kokoda trail. I used to run bootcamps in Kings Park and would often use these tough features as part of my classes workout.

Kings Park

Enjoying a walk around Kings Park on a sunny winter’s day.

5) Ride around  Lake Joondalup. This 16km loop takes about 2 hours and is a very flat easy ride. If you go in summer, you are guaranteed to see plenty of bobtail lizards and probably a snake, too. Dugites and tiger snakes are the nasty ones to avoid, so keep your eyes and ears open so you stay well out of their way.

6) Go for a beach walk! Ah! this is one of my favourite things about where I live. We have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and that’s coming from someone who has been to beaches in the Caribbean, Hawaii, East coast of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and America. Perth beaches have incredibly white sand, beautiful blue water (unless a storm has recently brought a lot of seaweed in) and are generally quite uncrowded. I love walking along Mullaloo beach. It’s spacious and doesn’t have rocks or reefs to watch out for. You can also do a very effective and challenging HIIT workout at the beach in a short amount of time by doing sand sprints. I like to set my gymboss timer to 30:90 second intervals. I’ll sprint as fast as I can in the sand for thirty seconds and then walk for ninety seconds to recover. Repeat this about eight times, then have a nice walk and swim to cool off with at the end.

healthy things to do in Perth

Beach runs: good for the body and mind.

7) Try surfing at Trigg beach. The waves are generally smaller in summer and bigger in winter. (Just a word of warning: it can get pretty crowded.)

8) Rollerblade, walk or cycle around the Swan River. This is a beautiful flat path with lovely views of the city and river. When my hubby and I were dating, we went for an evening rollerblade from Burswood over the Narrows Bridge and back over the other bridge which took about an hour. It was very romantic :)

9) Grab some food or a drink at Hillarys Boat Harbour. This is such a nice place and is popular with both tourists and locals. The places I like to eat here are: Boost Juice for a smoothie, Healtheze for a smoothie, coffee or healthy treat, The Sorrento Beach Shack for gluten-free food (both savoury and sweet) and Grilled Burgers for the best healthy burgers in the world!

healthy places to eat perth

Healtheze, on the boardwalk at Hillarys boat harbour.

Perth people, if I’ve missed anything from the list, please let me know! I’ll be doing a more comprehensive list of all the healthy places to eat in Perth in the future.

Holly x