G’day and welcome to my Australian gyms page!
Note that so far, these are all in Western Australia, until I get around to travelling the rest of it again.
Gyms in Australia are generally of a very high standard, as you’d expect in Western society. The chains I came across were Plus Fitness, GoodLife, Anytime Fitness, Jetts and Snap Fitness, all of which were to a good-excellent standard. Equipment was modern, gyms were all medium to large in size and well-maintained. That said, I didn’t really find a gym in Australia that was bad, especially having used some run-down places in Asia in the past couple of years!
It’s common for the chains to offer 24 hour access for members, but to be quite limited on staffed hours for the public. On weekdays, it’s usually just a few hours each morning, and again from mid afternoon to early evening, so check and plan your visit accordingly. And don’t expect gyms to be staffed on Sundays – this is rare!
Note that some small towns in Australia don’t have gyms at all, and in WA, public transport can be pretty scarce outside the cities, so if you need a gym most days, then check options before going. Other smallish towns like Pemberton and Walpole may only have one gym (pr recreation centre as they call it) with limited staffed hours – check beforehand and perhaps drop them a line. I found staff to be very accommodating in smaller towns where limited hours, (or even days!) are specified.
Cost
Currency approximation: AU$1 = US$0.67 = €0.61 = £0.54 at the time of writing.
The larger chains in cities usually charged around AU$15 for a casual session. $40 – $45 per week was common as a weekly casual rate. However, some chains offer excellent weekly rates of around $15 – without a lock-in period. You would however need to set up a direct debit to get this rate, but this can be cancelled any time. Well worth considering if you’re likely to be somewhere a couple of weeks and want to save some dollars whilst keeping up the training. Naturally long-term memberships have much better rates.
Small-town gyms typically charge lower casual rates of $8 – $10. Expect the facilities to be much smaller and with older equipment, though all the ones I went to were clean and well maintained.
All the clubs I used were a comfortable training temperature with aircon and fans as appropriate. Admittedly I was there during early spring when aircon was largely unnecessary, as it’s wasn’t too warm!
Please select a region or scroll down for complete list:
Albany
Bunbury
Fremantle
Manjimup
Margaret River
Pemberton
Perth
Walpole
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