Perth - Part Two

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Sat 28th Jan
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After breakfast we went out on tour again, then back for lunch at Sonya & Ken's house (Nigel's parents). After lunch we visited a few more places, wineries, an orangery & a chocolate factory. Back in at tea-time for feet up and watched a film on TV.

Weather cooler today, it was only 35C and a little cloudy.

Sun 29 Jan
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Nigel took us to Perth Mint for a look round and it was very interesting. We saw the making of a gold bar from molten gold and had a talk about the first prospectors and what they had to go through. The large gold coin (see photos) took 18 months to make and takes 4 men to lift it. It was made for the Queen's recent visit to Australia but she never had time to see it, so she sent staff to see it instead. It is pure gold and worth $55 million (about £40 million). It is actually legal tender as a $1 million coin! There was also some very beautiful gold jewellery for sale (unaffordable of course).

After this we had a picnic beside Lake Monger and fed the black swans and birds there. On the way back we noticed a sign "Do not feed the birds".

General tour round afterwards to beautiful parks and street where Rolf Harris was born in Bassendean (Basso).

Strong wind got up in the evening, a remnant of Cyclone Issy further north., but still 30C. In the evening we had a BBQ and Sinya & Ken came over.

Mon 30 Jan
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Visited another winerie in the morning (Upper Reach) and generally pottered about. In the afternoon we visited Caversham Wildlife Park. It was lovely to get up and close to the kangaroos, wallabies, wombats and koalas. That was a great experience. We cam home to Nigel's house to find two grey kangaroos in the back garden and they stayed for ages just eating the grass.

Went across to Sonya & Ken's house to say goodbye. They are lovely people and we are glad to have met them (again in Iain's case).

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