The summary: you will need a car, you will barely use it, and the drive to Perth is easier than people expect. Bunbury is a fifteen-minute city in every direction.
Inside the city
Almost every trip here is ten to fifteen minutes. There is a local bus network that covers the main suburbs and is useful if you live on a route and work regular hours, but it is not built for shift work, and most clinicians drive.
Parking is the quiet luxury. It is generally available and generally free, which after a capital city takes a while to stop noticing. Cycling works well on the flat coastal and estuary paths; less so in a South West winter.
Getting to Perth
The car question, answered plainly
Yes, you need one. Not because the city is hard to move around, but because the South West is the reason you came — and the wineries, the forests, the beaches south of here and the trailheads inland are not on a bus route. If you are a two-adult household, you will probably want two cars eventually, though plenty of people manage on one for the first year.
Licence conversion, importing a vehicle, insurance and registration all work the same way across Australia and are covered once in Living in Australia. Nothing about it is specific to Bunbury.
- Sort a car early — the regional used market is thinner than a capital’s, so give yourself options.
- Check whether your accommodation has off-street parking. Most does; it is worth confirming.
- If you are commuting from Australind or Dalyellup, drive the route at your actual start time once before you commit.
- Register for the rail service if you expect regular Perth trips — seats on the busy runs go early.
A car is essential and barely used inside the city. Fifteen minutes to anything local, two hours to Perth on a good road — and the car earns its keep on weekends, not on the commute.