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Published: September 4th 2006
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As you have guessed, I am loving Perth, not just the town, but areas surrounding, along the swan river, (orig known as Black Swan River, shortened now to Swan River), there are many marina's and Millionaire homes (including one owned by David Bowie no less) and what look like nice communities away from the city. The Port of Fremantle was a popular place for Perthians on a Sunny Sunday. There are martitime and motor museums and, quite Bizaarly, the Fremantle Prison is on the tourist attraction list, for A$18 (about 8 quid) you can have a guided tour. I went for the better option of having a delicious breakfast at the round house cafe.
A short bus ride away is Scarborough beach, apparently the local surf spot, when I got there, the very kind bus driver explained that if I stay on the bus, he will go on up the coast a bit to Hillary's harbour, which has an aquarium (I had remembered reading about it in my lonely planet) with underwater tunnel, similar to the one I went to in Singapore. He explained that Scarborough was having extensive work done on the sea front and that the Harbour would have
Freemantle Port
Large ships and smaller vessels more to see, (he was right). The surfers were just getting on at this point and he also explained that we would pass the surfing bays and they get off where the best breaks are. They are allowed on the bus with a surfboard of not longer than 2m. I stayed on the bus, and as he drove along the sunset coast, I was glad I did. It was lovely, I got off at the harbour, had some lunch there, walked around and also went into the Aquarium, which was very good, and did have the underwater tunnel, huge stingwray and sharks pass beside and above you, not to mention all the other beautifully coloured fish. When I eventually came out, I realised it was still early and started to walk back along the coast road, which had a pavement all along, right back to Scarborough - about 7-8 KM, it was a fabulous walk, blue sky, sunny with a cool spring breeze. All along the sea and beaches on my right, many access entrys to the different beaches. I even had a sit on one of the little sandy coves. There weren't many surfing today, about 3 ft bit
Freemantle Prison
local tourist attraction? messy. Back at Scarborough there were some kite surfers out. As I walked I noticed that it is a popular trek for cyclists, joggers and power walkers and who could blame them, it was really nice. I walked a small part of the sunset coast!!.
A Coach trip took me to the Margaret River region which included some wine tasting at Xanadu Winery (after tasting 6, decided I liked the first one best!!), Mommoth Cave, which was an amazing large underground limestone cave, with a complete walkay, and well distributed lighting, not usually very keen on caves, this was the best 'cave' I have ever been in, so many unusual shapes and patterns of the stalegtites and stalegmites, produced over hundreds of years from the tree routes above. We then had lunch and an Eagle flight display at the Eagle Heritage Raptor Centre, a short stop in the Boranup Forest and then we stopped at the famous Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, a geographical point of significance marking the dividing point between the Southern and Indian Oceans. As we headed back,we stopped for our evening meal at the Busselton Jetty, which is a 2KM consturction, the longest timber jetty in the
Coast Path
Sunset Coast to Scarborough, past Trigg and several others Southern hemisphere, we were just in time to see the sun set. It was then nearly 3 hours drive back. 700 KM round trip. Everyone on the trip was really freindly, and particularly nice to meet Carolin, my companion for the day, from Munich (Germany) who is staying in Perth with a Guest Family on an Internship, studying to be a Doctor.
Some peculiarities of Perth or Oz, when you go into any shop, you are greeted with 'hi, how are you going, how is your day today?' this is quite disturbing for us 'british', I wonder what they will do when I tell them, not good, bad day, everything going wrong bla bla bla. If you want a coffee, you ask for a 'flat white', and the 2 dollar coins are the small ones, 1 dollar coins are large (opposite of our 1 & 2 pound coins). When you get a train or bus ticket, they are worked out on zones, so you pay by zone, these tickets are returns (as long as you return within 2 hours).
My YHA membership card is proving to be extremely useful, got 10% discount on my coach ticket to Albany,
I leave tomorrow.
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paula
non-member comment
it is cold ?
hi mate, has spring kicked in yet in oz. glad you are enjoying it. have you met many people? i can't believe how much sightseeing stuff you are doing.. do you get time to just sit down and eat cake. take care love me xxxx