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Published: March 31st 2013
Cottesloe Beach
Sculpture By The Sea 2Hi All
Well, I'm on the last leg of this great adventure and trying to squeeze in the last few things I want to do before I have to step on the plane back to the cold and wet UK :-( I will try to bring a little sunshine back with me in time for the Easter weekend.
My time in Perth has been made so much easier by a new friend I have made here. Gail emigrated here about three years ago and is the daughter of my parents' neighbours' friends! We had never met before but when I emailed to say I would be visiting Perth she immediately offered me a place to stay. I accepted gratefully. We are about the same age and hit it off straight away and it has been lovely to have somewhere to base myself for these three weeks. She lives in North Perth about a 30 minute walk into the city centre or a quick bus ride.
On my first day here Gail took me on a tour of the local area so that I could get my bearings and get a feel for the place. We drove up the
Fremantle Beach
Typical beach activities - weddings and sculpture exhibitions! coast a bit to see some of the beaches nearby (which are lovely of course!) and then went south to Fremantle which is one of the places I really wanted to see and go back to another day. Driving back we passed Cottesloe Beach which was also on my list, and ended up stopping there for a while because they had a 'Sculpture By The Sea' event on, with all sorts of weird and wonderful pieces just randomly placed on the beach and the foreshore. It is a fabulous beachfront with a couple of older, more ornate buildings and it was obviously a really popular place. That evening I'd arranged to meet a couple who a friend of Mum's put me in touch with. We went for a curry in Subiaco, one of Perth's suburbs and had a very pleasant evening.
I've been into the city a few times, done a bit of shopping and visited the WA museum and the art gallery which was showing an exhibit of photos of New York throughout the years which was of particular interest to me having been there for the first time last September. They also had a display of Year
View from King's Park
The city of Perth and the Swan River 12 students art projects for their final school year which had been specially selected and were in competition for awards. They were extremely varied and used all sorts of mediums - nothing like I remember from my art classes. Mind you, art was never one of my fortés!
One of the days I spent in the city it absolutely bucketed down with thunder and lightning. Despite my waterproof's best efforts I got fairly well soaked and when I hopped on one of the free buses here it got stuck in so much traffic it took forever to get anywhere as the city seemed to grind to a halt. A normal day in the UK but in a state which has so much sunshine the systems don't deal with rain too well.
Another day I took the train down to Fremantle to have a proper look around. They have a large, busy indoor market there selling everything from artworks to food to crafts so I had a good meander around there. It is thought to be a more bohemian part of Perth with a better preserved history which can be seen in some of the architecture from the 19th
Rooftop Cinema
The screen with the city as backdrop century - fairly unusual for Australian towns which seem to have mostly pulled down old buildings to build new ones. I enjoyed some time people-watching in a park on the way to the coast then visited the beach where there was some artwork being displayed and a bride and groom having some wedding photos taken. I also visited the Shipwreck Museum nearby and had a look around the marina.
On the weekend Gail and I and her Iranian lodger decided to visit King's Park which is a very large park on the outskirts of the city. It was another extremely hot day so I slapped on the sunscreen, my hat and a shirt and off we went. It's a lovely park, extremely well maintained with various statues and memorials in it. We took the path around the edge where it follows the course of the Swan River which runs through Perth. It is very wide at that point and I was reminded of Sydney Harbour in places. so it was a picturesque walk, but a tough one in the heat! By lunch time I was very ready for a long cold drink and a good feed, as they say
here!
That evening Gail and I and a friend of hers went to a Rooftop Cinema which is set up on the top floor of a multi-storey car park and has views across the city. It is decorated with pastel coloured fencing around the edge, a few small caravans selling food and drink, improvised colorful lighting and seats which are mostly different types of deckchairs. The screen is attached to two stacked portacabins and we saw 'This Is 40' which was OK, but nothing special, but I really enjoyed the setting.
The next day was the start of my last trip within a trip - five days travelling to the south-west corner of the country, known as the Margaret River region. I'd hired a car (with the warning not to drive at dawn or dusk because that's when kangaroos are likely to hop across the road!) to give me the freedom to travel as I pleased rather than join an organised tour which are also a lot more expensive. The south-west is another beautiful part of the country with varying coastline - calm quiet beaches on the northern coast and rugged surfing beaches on the west coast.
Underwater Observatory
Artificial reef on jetty supports I spent the first couple of days exploring the northern coastal towns. I went to the Bunbury Dolphin Discovery Centre where wild dolphins visit most days. As soon as one is spotted in the bay a bell is rung and anyone can go down to the water where the volunteers line up all the visitors in the water (up to your thighs!) so that they are close up but you're not allowed to touch or interact with the dolphins. I was reluctant at first, just because I hadn't thought to bring a towel or a change of clothes, but the general excitement of the moment took over and I waded in with everyone else. It was magical to be so close to a dolphin just swimming around so close. I was lucky enough to see two dolphin visits while I was there. The previous day they hadn't had any.
I also went to Busselton where there is a jetty which goes out into the sea for almost 2km. A little train takes you all the way along it and you can then go down into the underwater observatory where you can see an artificial reef where coral and plant
life have grown up around the jetty's supports. There are three levels of windows to see different views of it all and it was very pretty.
The town of Margaret River itself is a little inland and is very busy, although that might have been mostly due to a national surf competition taking place nearby. There are quite a few caves in the area and I visited Lake Cave which was about 300 steps down (much harder on the way up!) but it was worth it as it is beautiful inside. Stalactites and stalagmites abound, there is water running through and the various formations are fabulous. The guide told us a lot about their history and ran through various light effects to show off the rock formations in different parts of the cave.
As there was a pro surf event going on nearby I couldn't resist going to watch this truly Australian pastime. They'd had three days of no surf so everyone was very keen to get back in the water. I have very little knowledge of surfing so l was lucky there was a commentator explaining what was going on. There were various heats being held where
groups of four surfers competed for waves and had to successfully perform manouvres to build up points. If two surfers went for the same wave and there was any jostling between them, the judges had to decide whether one or both were at fault and dock points accordingly. Unfortunately I didn't see anyone catch a tube (riding a wave on the inside of the breaking water) but there were some spectacular manouevres and some great wipeouts!!
My final evening in the area was spent at a winery - not to sample the products, but to watch a film in their grounds. It was at Cape Mantelle and I'd read about it on the Internet before my trip and decided I'd go if I got the opportunity. They just do it January to March and they mostly show current films. On my chosen evening they were showing the Denzel Washington film 'Flight' which was pretty good. I had a bit of time before the film so I treated myself to a glass of their Semillon Sauvignon Blanc which was very tasty (only one mind you as I'd been stopped for a breath test by police on the way there so
didn't want to get detained on the way home!), and chatted to some other filmgoers in the outdoor bar. When the film started, most people then sat on bean bag chairs or blankets on the grass in front of the screen, and wrapped up warm as the evenings are getting a bit chilly here. What a lovely way to spend an evening :-)
The drive back to Perth seemed long and monotonous. At one point the GPS said I had 99.6km before the next junction!! The car didn't have to be returned until later in the day so I took the time to visit a couple of the beaches a little north of Perth - Brighton Beach and Scarborough Beach - before making my way home.
I've been writing this in stages when I've had time over my last few days in Australia. My flight leaves today and I have managed to squeeze in a lovely boat trip along the Swan River to Freemantle and back, a visit to the Perth Mint where I saw gold being poured, enjoyed a picnic with Gail and her neighbours and attended a lecture by Liz Byrski, an Australian novelist I like,
Brighton Beach
The other one! about the role of women's literature in womens' lives and its influence on her writing in particular.
It's been a fabulous trip and I've done almost everything I set out to do which I'm really pleased about. The weather has been kind to me and I have managed to avoid the various major weather events that plague this country - floods, bush fires, storms and tornados. The country hasn't disappointed and the people have been lovely. If I had to choose somewhere else to live then Australia would get my vote. There is a sense of anything being possible here, whatever your aims in life may be.
Off to catch my flight now! I might post once more when I'm home and have had some time to reflect on this little interlude in my life. Thanks for reading my meandering prose, and I'll see most of you soon.
Jo :-)
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Anita
non-member comment
Enjoyed your blog and great pics.
Dear Jo. Just to welcome you home, it must seem like Ice Age to you! We're so pleased you have embraced all that Australia offered you. Your blogs were always interesting and really gave a brief flavour of all that you saw and did. It also bought back lots of happy memories for us. As you say, its the place to live, if only it weren't t'other side of the world from our friends and families!! love Anita x