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Published: October 18th 2010
Perth Mint
Xavier in front of the Perth Mint building. Unfortunately no photos were allowed to be taken inside. 15th October 2010 - Our last day in Perth was spent getting a feel for the city, wandering around the malls and then visiting the Perth Mint. (Even though this is in the same street as the Mall - it is a long walk!) The Perth Mint was quite fascinating. Since WAs wealth has come from the ground it was very interesting to find out about the gold rush. We watched a gold bar being poured. Melted to over 1000 degrees and cool to touch after being cooled down in water for less than 5 minutes!.
16th October 2010 - Packed up the caravan, which is a bit of a chore when getting the annex down but really only 40 minutes of pulling, unclipping and folding. When everyone helps pretty quick. Moved from Karrinyup waters to Busselton. Busselton is just over 200kms south of Perth. Passing through or past places such as Armadale and Bunbury and drove through the last remaining Tuart forest. Catherine drove!! The caravan tends to make the car swing a bit (up and down) which takes a bit of getting used to, but as the roads are pretty good here the driving was OK. Arrived at the
caravan park and set up in record 40 minutes. Staying at the Mandalay park which is right on Geographe Bay. It is south of Busselton but not too far as there are bike tracks (and the beach) on which you could walk or bike into the centre. The bay is freezing of course, so we dipped our toes in then the boys went swimming in the park pool. I walked into Busselton along the beach. Beautiful houses - all new, all huge, all with a boat in the drive, line the esplanade. Busselton is a play area for the rich. It is flat reaching up to the beach so that all you can see are houses when looking from the beach, very few trees. Busselton has a jetty which stretches for 2kms. This gives you an idea of how flat/shallow the bay is. The jetty unfortunately is under restoration, but you will see a photo attached here of the blue boat sheds attached. It really is very European!
17th October 2010 - Whale watching day. It is the season for the humpback and the blue whale to head back to Antarctica, so we took the opportunity to go out onto
Geographe Bay to see if we could see any. The Blue Whale is the largest animal in the world and actually very shy so it would be unusual to see one, but see one we did, with calf. She was about 40 tons. One foot equals one ton - so we were told. amazing creature with no dorsal fin. After leaving the blue whale we watched several isolated pods of humpbacks. Assumed they were mothers and calves as they weren't so friendly enough to come over to the boat, coming up for air then diving quite deep. We did however see two humpbacks breech at the same time. Quite a sight!. They also waved their fins in the air and slapped them either side as if saying 'hello'. Amazing. The water was crystal clear blue and although the photos tend to make it look windy the day was as calm as you could hope for. We also saw two Albatross, a turtle and flying fish. Then were escorted home by a pod of dolphins. (common dolphin not the bottlenose dolphin) Arrived back in the middle of the day a little sunburned but very happy. In the afternoon Lachlan, Xavier and
Whale watching -boys
The boat was fantastic - you could sit up on the bridge or ride on the front. Catherine went fishing off the jetty in Busselton. No sooner were our liitle blood worm baits in the water than we had caught a flat head, 4 whiting and a flounder. Hard to believe it but we had fish for dinner!! Still having a great time.
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anna
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perth mint
Didn't read your blog in time: we were in the Perth Mint on the same day as you were. Such a shame as it would have been nice to have treated the boys to some sort of big edible treat at our hotel, which was walking distance from the Mint. Anyway, the trip sounds fantastic!