Six o'clock on a Tuesday and there were four segways queued at the Elizabeth Quay end of the path, waiting for a gap in the joggers. That's become a fairly normal sight on the foreshore these days. Foreshore segway tours have gone from novelty to genuine fixture in Perth's tour scene over the past few years, and having watched a fair few of them roll past my office window, I reckon they're one of the better ways to actually see the river rather than just skirt around it in a bus.
I've been on more tours and boats than I could count at this point, and most blur together. One segway tour didn't, mostly because a bloke in our group clipped a bollard near the jetty and ended up in the shallows, phone and all. Everyone survived, the guide handled it well, and it's stuck with me as a reminder that these things need a decent operator running them, not just someone who's rented a fleet of machines and hoped for the best.
Why the foreshore suits segway and e-scooter tours
The city foreshore is flat, wide and mostly free of traffic lights, which is exactly what a segway or e-scooter needs. You've got clear sightlines to the CBD skyline, the river doing its thing on one side, and enough width on the paths to let a small group move without bunching up. Add in landmarks like the Bell Tower, Elizabeth Quay and the old Barrack Street Jetty precinct, and you've got a route that photographs well and doesn't require much technical riding skill.
The Swan River Bridges and City Segway Tour in Perth is the one most visitors end up booking first, and it makes sense why. It threads along the water, crosses a couple of the bridges that most tourists only ever see from a distance, and gives a proper sense of how the city and river actually sit together geographically. I've had visitors tell me they understood Perth's layout better after ninety minutes on a segway than after two days of driving around it.
Kings Park adds elevation and a bit of history
If the bridges tour is about the water, the Kings Park and Blue Boat House Segway Tour is about height and heritage. You get the lookout views from Kings Park, then drop down toward the Blue Boat House, one of the most photographed little structures in the state, tucked in against Crawley Edge. It's a different pace to the flat foreshore run, with a few more inclines and a longer commentary component, which suits people who want context rather than just movement.
Between the two tours you're covering most of what makes the river worth looking at, and I'd say most visitors only need to pick one unless they've got a full day free.
Where e-scooters fit into the picture
Segways get the tour-company treatment, guided and structured, but e-scooters have quietly taken over as the self-guided option for locals and visitors who just want to move along the water at their own pace. You'll see hire scooters lined up near South Perth on weekends, and they're legal to use on shared paths under the state's personal mobility device rules, provided you're sticking to the designated zones rather than weaving onto the road.
The obvious route for this is the South Perth Foreshore Cycle Path, which runs long enough to get a proper sense of speed and distance without turning into an endurance event. If you want something a touch more relaxed, the South Perth Foreshore PSP is the shared path version, wider and more forgiving if you've got kids or slower riders in the group. I'd send confident riders to the cycle path and everyone else to the PSP, honestly, because the etiquette around dog walkers and prams on a Saturday morning gets a bit hairy if you're not paying attention.
Getting there without driving
Parking around the foreshore on a weekend is patchy at best, so most people I talk to end up catching the train or a bus in via Transperth and walking the last stretch to whichever meeting point the tour uses. It's a small thing, but it saves the hassle of circling for a park near Mends Street on a busy afternoon, and it means you're not trying to remember where you left the car after ninety minutes of gliding around on a segway.
