Saturday 12th November.
After meeting up with J and M at the East Perth Terminal, collected my bag and drove to W's where J and M are staying for
the weekend. In the evening we went out first to the Lucky Shag Bar, close to the
waterfront, and which seemed to be hosting several hen parties, where I tried
the 50 Lashes beer. From there we headed to the Reveley rooftop bar which has a
great view over the riverfront and was full of mostly young, beautiful people;
rather more up-market than the Lucky Shag.
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| Perth Waterfront |
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| J&M in the Reveley |
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| View from the Reveley Rooftop Bar |
Had dinner in Billy Lee's, an excellent Chinese place, lemon chicken,
duck, beef with spring onion and ginger and some vegetables and rice. We finished
off the evening drinking bottles of Pinot Noir in a wine bar in the
Treasury Building.
Sunday 13th November
Packed up our stuff and had breakfast at a place on the
riverfront near the Lucky Shag, where service was incredibly slow and I eventually
received a very stodgy raisin toast, nothing like the tasty ones I’d had
earlier, and a lukewarm coffee. Then we went up the Bell Tower which was both
free and fascinating. It has one of the largest peel of bells in the world,
most of which came from St Martins in the Field in London. Being Sunday, the bell
ringers were in attendance so we could watch them at work and hear the bells
being rung.
http://www.thebelltower.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Student_Intro.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Bells
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| Perth Bell Tower |
After listening to the bells, we drove to Heirisson Island in
the Swan River where we were hoping to see lots of kangaroos but only managed
to find one, sleeping under a tree.
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| Sleepy Kangaroo |
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| Perth from Heirisson Island |
Then headed to J & M's place which turns
out to be a large single storey home in almost 1/2 acre of land up in the hills
east of Perth. J is a very keen gardener and later showed me some of the
various vegetables and fruits which she grows. Stopped off at a local pub for a
few drinks with Ly from N Ireland and then had a barbecue in the evening with P
and L, the next door neighbours.
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| J&M's place |
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| Edna the Emu in the Garden |
Monday 14th November
J and I drove out to Mundaring weir, originally built at the
end of the 19th century as part of the scheme to pump water over 500 km to
supply the mining area of Kalgoorlie. It was an amazing feat of engineering,
completed in about 5 years. Several display boards tell the story and there is
a statue of CY O'Connor who was the chief engineer of the project. Sadly he
killed himself a year before the project was completed.
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| Mundaring Weir |
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| Mundaring Hotel. Sadly, closed when we arrived |
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| J and one of the pipes to Kalgoorlie |
Tuesday 14th November
J drove me to Midland station from where it was a quick
train journey to Perth and a short walk from there to the Barack Street
Jetty for the ferry to Rottnest, where I met up with W, her partner S and a friend D. During the boat trip from Perth down the Swan River to
Freemantle, W pointed out some of the incredibly expensive and massive
properties along the river including the site of the “Taj Mahal” an Indian
style "palace" built by one of the super-rich who then ran out of
funds and left it half built for several years before it was finally
demolished.
The mining boom created huge amounts of wealth for the city but
since the price of commodities, particularly iron ore collapsed, unemployment
has increased and office vacancies stand at 20%. Further down the river we
passed a marina with hundreds of white yachts and cabin cruisers; all the
appearance of a wealthy city. Not very impressed with the boat from Perth to
Freemantle which was totally enclosed with no open deck, a silly seating
arrangement which seemed to be designed by someone who had forgotten that
people have legs, and doorways designed for pygmies. At Freemantle, we switched
to a much better and faster boat to Rottnest Island where I was surprised to
find a Dome Café where we enjoyed coffee and croissants.
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| Fremantle Port. Maersk gets everywhere |
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| Rottnest Ferry |
W S & D had decided to hire bikes while I chose to walk
round the island, or at least part of it. The oldest buildings on the island
date from the earliest period of West Australia settlement and were established
as a prison for indigenous people who were treated appallingly. Today Rottnest
is a holiday island with beautiful beaches, turquoise and blue sea and
thousands of small, friendly marsupials, quokkas. The island was first explored
by a mariner Willem de Vlamingh in the service of the Dutch East India Company
in in 1696, who called it “Rotte Nest” (rat's
nest) believing the quokkas to be giant rats. Although there are thousands
of quokkas on the island, they are rare and endangered elsewhere in Western
Australia.
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| One of the old buildings on Rottnest |
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| Hotel Rottnest |
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| Bathurst Lighthouse |
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| Friendly Quokka |
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| Friendly Quokka |
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| Beautiful, almost empty, Beach |
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| Another Secluded Cove |
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| Being Watched |
After walking round the Northern part of the coast enjoying
the beautiful secluded bays and even dipping my toes in the bracingly cold
water I headed inland to some salt lakes where, without the coastline to guide
me I found the map and signposts to be seriously inadequate. The person who
designed the map clearly didn’t communicate with whoever did the signs. The Gabbi
Karniny Bidi Trail is shown clearly on the map but isn’t marked on any of the
signs which typically show a picture of a bird. Later after looking on the
internet I found out that “The Wadjemup Bidi is broken into 5 sections, with
each section defined by its own colour. A symbol of an osprey is used to depict
the trail and is located on all the directional markers.”
Think the colours had faded and the map didn’t say anything
about Ospreys. The sign told me I was at Pink Lake which would have been useful
if it had been marked on the map. Similarly the signs told me I was on Darby
Drive which was also missing from the map. Finally I resorted to Google maps! Enough
of my rant; it was a great day out.
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| The Man who started it all |
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| Back in Fremantle Port |
Wednesday 16th November
Drove to King's Park just to the west of central Perth with J
and met up with Wendy and David for breakfast in a café. King's Park has a world class collection of
Western Australian plants, many of which are native only to WA and often
endangered. J explained that just as non-indigenous animals such as rabbits,
foxes and cats have driven many native creatures to near extinction so
non-native plants are having a similar effect. King’s Park also has a fantastic
view of Perth and the Swan River. And, I almost forgot to mention, a statue of
Queen Victoria, during whose reign “Australia was colonised and federated”.
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| VR |
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| View over the City |
I walked down into the city centre with W & D and then
had a wander round on my own dodging the showers by diving into shopping malls.
The retail area of Perth is just a few streets, one of which, London Court,
claims to be an imitation Elizabethan London street.
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Perth Town Hall,
the only town hall built by convicts in Australia |
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| Supreme Court of Western Australia |
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| High Rise Perth |
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| "Elizabethan" Street |
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| "Elizabethan" Street |
After deciding I’d seen enough of downtown
Perth, took the free Yellow CAT bus which took me to Claisebrook where I found
an organic café which served me a Phoenix organic cola and a peanut cookie. I
would like to convince myself they tasted better than the conventional versions
but they didn’t. Took the CAT bus back to Perth main railway station and then
the suburban Transperth train to Midland passing through Bassendean, formerly
the home of Rolf Harris “entertainer and convicted paedophile” according to
Wikipedia who was known as the “Boy from
Bassendean” but is no longer the local hero. Realised that I was travelling
back along the same route as the Indian Pacific on which I had arrived in Perth.
Midland grew up as a railway town on the Perth to Kalgoorlie line and was the
site of a large railway workshop. The line was originally on a 3’6” gauge but was
upgraded to standard gauge while the Transperth trains still operate on the
narrow gauge, necessitating dual gauge tracks.
Had a look round the town which
has a few historic buildings and is more cosmopolitan than I had expected with
two Pilipino “Pinoy” restaurants along with the expected Chinese and Thai ones,
and a Happy Herb Shop. From Midland caught the 322 bus to Glen Forest out
through some industrial suburbs and then through areas that appeared to be
forest or “bush” but were actually hiding desirable residences.
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| Midland Memorial Hall |
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| Artwork Celebrating Midland's Railway Heritage |
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| Happy Herbs |
Thursday 17th November
Early morning start driving into the city with Mark who
dropped me off at W’s where I had a coffee and a slice of toast meeting up
with D again and later G for our trip to the Pinnacles. It was about 7am
when we set off through Perth’s seemingly endless suburbs stretched out along
the coast north of the city for about 40km. A fast expressway took us about
30km and then we were on a two lane highway until we reached the Pinnacles
which are about 200km north of Perth, and much closer to the shore than I had
expected, just a few minutes before opening time at 9.30. Mark had accurately,
if prosaically, described them as “tall rocks in a sandpit” but I was suitable
impressed as we followed the walking trail, with hardly anyone else around,
through the sand surrounded by these strange limestone formations. The bright
sunshine and clear blue sky helps. Certainly beats Stonehenge in my opinion!
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| Pinnacles |
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| G, D & W plus Pinnacle |
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| More Pinnacles |
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| More Pinnacles |
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| More Pinnacles |
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| Wild Flower |
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| They call this a Christmas Tree |
Later we drove along a second trail for motor vehicles which didn’t add much to
the experience but by now was quite busy with dozens of tourists taking
selfies. After taking our fill of the pinnacles, whose origin seems to be a
matter of some debate we headed to Cervantes to view the stromatolites in Lake
Thetis. While they are scientifically fascinating, examples of one of the
earliest life forms to have existed on earth, they don’t put on much of a
performance and it didn’t take us long before we drove off to the Lobster Shack
in Cervantes town to eat some more advanced life forms. Very tasty!
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| Stromatolites in Lake Thetis |
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| Lunch at Lobster Shack |
On the way back we stopped off for coffee at Guilderton a
small seaside settlement with a pretty river.
Friday 18th November
J dropped me off at Midland in time for the 0830 Transperth
train which arrived in Fremantle an hour later where I soon found High Street
Mall and Richard's Gourmet Sandwiches for a breakfast of coffee and a bacon and
egg roll for $8. Freemantle is a lovely historic town with many pretty 19th
century buildings, dozens of cafes along the “Cappuccino Strip” and a large
covered market.
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| Freemantle Station |
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| National Hotel |
After a good wander round I found the prison, claimed to be the
best example of a 19th century convict prison in Australia. Much of
the history is explained in some small museums. Although Western Australia was
not originally a convict settlement, its economy didn’t thrive and convicts
were transported to provide cheap, forced labour. Their first job was building
the prison. Most of the early ones were young men who had been convicted of
relatively minor crimes; many of them went on to become successful citizens. I
went on the informative prison tour which started at the reception area and
ended at the gallows. It must have been a grim place to be held. It was finally
closed in the early 1990’s after a riot in the 1980’s after temperatures in the
cell blocks exceeded 50°C.
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| Fremantle Prison |
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| Cell Block |
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| Villa for Senior Staff |
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| Exercise Yard |
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| Cell Block |
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| Original Cell (Reconstruction) |
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| Cell when it closed in the 1990's |
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| In the 1990's prisoners were allowed to paint the cell walls |
Then went to the shipwreck museum which has a large section
of the Batavia, a Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship which sank in 1629 on a
reef on the Western Australia coast. Most of the people on board were able to get
onto a small island but were subsequently murdered by an unscrupulous mutineer.
Definitely not a happy story.
The museum houses many artefacts recovered from the wreck of
the Batavia as well as other ships which came to grief on the coast. Most of
the early exploration of the area was done by the VOC but it didn’t see any
business opportunity in Australia and the rest, as they say, is history.
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| Part of the Batavia |
By now it was time to get a train back to Perth where I met
Mark and later went out to their local pub for drinks and a meal with several
of their friends.
Saturday 19th November
Off to the airport and the end of my trip across Australia. Approx 4443km from Sydney to Perth.
