While out and about, we stumbled on the Fire Fighter
Heritage Museum so we popped in for a look.
Upon hearing that my brother and stepdad are firemen, the docent,
a retired firefighter named Jim, insisted that I don some firefighter gear for
a photo. I was having a good hair day
and really didn’t want to but Jim wasn’t taking no for an answer so here I am with Jim,
looking ridiculous, wearing the newest in firefighter helmet fashions (after
already having modeled the historic hat and coat much to Alex’s amusement, so of course he
got a photo of that too).
The museum was in a historic firehouse and was really
cool. They had the fire pole, all the
old gear and even an antique fire truck.
One block after the museum we ran across St. Mary’s Cathedral.
The neat thing about this huge church in the middle of the
downtown area was that half of it is historic and old and the other half is
brand new and modern. Yet it all works
and the final product is a massive, gorgeous structure.
The next day we hopped on the train (Perth had the most
amazingly convenient, and cheap, public transit) and headed down to
Fremantle. Freo, as the locals call it,
is a cute historic town on the Indian Ocean 30 mins south west of Perth. Alex said parts of it reminded him of Bermuda
and I loved everything about this quaint seaside paradise (seriously, if I was
going to live anywhere in Australia, Freo would be it).
We started our day by wandering around the famous markets for
a few hours.
The Fremantle Prison is one of the largest tourist
attractions in town, and the only World Heritage listed building in Western
Australia, so we went to check it out too.
Built entirely by the prisoners who were shipped there to serve their
sentences, it was in use as Western Australia’s maximum security prison until
the 1990s.
After finishing the Prison, the prisoners were set to work
building up the rest of the area and I have to say they did a mighty fine
job. Many of the original buildings from
the late 1800s are still standing and in use today. Look at the gorgeous architecture and
stonework of this historic church…
Australia, surprisingly, has very few good beers so we were
delighted to learn that Little Creatures, one of Alex’s preferred brews, was
made in Freo (Fosters and Coopers pretty much control the beer market over here
with Castamere Perkins, the brewery behind XXXX, coming in a close third –none
of them are bad per se, it’d just be like having ONLY Bud or Miller products to
choose from back home with dark or amber ales being really hard to come by and
no craft brews whatsoever). The brewery
was right on the water, sadly we missed the last tour, but we had fun sitting
off an enjoying a cold beer before we headed back to the city.
For those of you AC/DC fans, Bonn Scott (the original lead
singer – though if you’re a fan I don’t have to tell you that) was from Freo
and they have a rockin’ statue of him near the harbor.
The following morning Alex was geeked out to go to SciTech,
an interactive learning zone (read: adult play area) that he’d read about in
one of the guidebooks. It sounded cool;
there were race car simulators where you could test your reflexes and all sorts
of other similar fun toys Alex was looking forward to playing with. I should stop right now and tell you that it
was school holidays in Western Australia for the two weeks we were here. That being said, SciTech was probably not the
best idea but when we arrived there were only a few kids in line. We later found out why – because all the
other children in Perth were already in SciTech. It was a zoo; there were kids everywhere,
underfoot, screaming, jumping in front of you to try out the experiments and we
were probably the only two adults there not being dragged around by at least
one child. Yeah, it was a fail and I
felt terrible because it was another one of Alex’s activities that didn’t go as
planned. And, just when I thought Alex
could take it no more, we entered the dinosaur area and saw this life size
replica of a Muttaburrasaurus (please tell me you all remember Alex’s
muttaburrasaurus haiku from our first road trip – I originally called it a
muttabuttasaurus in my post but we were mistaken, it is a
muttaburrasaurus). That was the final
straw for Alex, who was still bitterly disappointed by our trip to Winton
(where Arno’s Wall was the highlight because didn’t get to see any dinosaur
fossils) and couldn’t believe he’d written a haiku for such a lame dinosaur, so
we left SciTech after that exhibit.
From there we headed to Kings Park, the world’s largest city
park (larger than Central Park) perched on a hill overlooking downtown. The views of the city were gorgeous.
The park also had a wonderful tree top walk that looped around
with views of the river.
A little further in there was a nature walk where you felt
like you were in the middle of nowhere despite being minutes from the city.
I was moved by the park’s war memorial. Australia honors its fallen soldiers, and
those who have served in wartime, with monuments in every major city and I
think it is awesome the respect they show for those who have sacrificed for
their country.
Poor Alex. He was
burnt out our experience at SciTech so he laid down to relax while I ran
off to pet yet another dog (I still really miss my golden retriever Penny and,
since petting strangers’ dogs is the next best thing, I stop to say hello
pretty much any time we see a dog).
Up next on our adventure list; Joondalup. We’d seen beautiful pictures of the Joondalup
coastal walk and were keen to get north to experience it ourselves. As it turned out, Alex’s Dad’s old roommate
from back in his early days in England, lives with his family in Joondalup and
we’d been invited to join them for a family BBQ while we were in Perth. So we headed there to meet them and check out
all Joondalup had to offer. It was a
calm, crisp spring day so we grabbed some lunch and headed for the coast. The walk was just like it was in the photos
we’d seen, beautiful.
After a few hours of wandering around, we were picked up by
the Blake’s and quickly chauffeured to the local crematorium (yep, really)
where all the kangaroos hang out. It was
SO cool; there were wild kangaroos just chilling amongst the tombstones eating
all the funeral flowers (well that part wasn’t cool, but it was neat to see
them so up close).
The Blake’s were the nicest people and we were made to feel
so at home in their house. Their three
sons, and daughter-in-law, all came by for dinner and it was wonderful to be in
a family atmosphere again, even if just for a night. They had the cutest blonde cocker spaniel,
Tilly, who I immediately smothered with cuddles but, by far the best part was
the delicious home cooked meal that Mrs. Blake prepared for everyone. There was so much food and it was all sooooo
good (if we’re lucky Mrs. Blake will share her potato recipe with us so I can
make them for you when I get home); we won’t eat that well again until Alex’s
parents get here (fortunately that’s only a few days away). Here is Alex with our gracious hosts.
Sadly we weren’t able to make it down to Margaret River (a
famous Australian wine region) while we were in WA so we hit the next best
thing, Swan Valley, just outside of Perth. We decided to go there on a tour and we got
quite a bang for our buck; five wineries, all with generous tastings, lunch and
brewery! The Waters Edge winery is the
oldest in the region and was our first stop.
I thought the old brick building was neat and the terrace, complete with
multiple rose beds, looked out over the Swan River.
Charlie’s Winery was one of our last stops and they had this
cool old pick-up truck with old wine barrels in the front yard where we stopped
for a photo. (To my family, yes of
course it made me think of Grandpa. I
just wish they’d have had t-shirts so I could have gotten one for him).
On our last day in Perth we went to the Zoo before meeting some friends for dinner. It wasn’t nearly as big as the Taronga Zoo in
Sydney but they had a beautiful Bengal Tiger and huge Galapagos Tortoise and we
spent the better part of a day wandering around checking out all the
animals.
We had originally wanted to make it out to Rottnest Island,
off the coast, but it was nearly $200 for the ferry for both of us and, in
truth, there isn’t really anything to do on the island but chill on the beach
and hit the water (which we weren’t doing for two reasons: 1) it was still
fairly cool in Perth and the water was downright cold and 2) five people have
already gotten bitten by great white sharks this year) so we decided against
making the trip. I was pretty
disappointed because the island is one of the rare natural habitats for
quokkas, an animal that I had been told was ‘a mix between a bunny and a rat…
in a good way’. Naturally my curiosity
was peaked and I had been really looking forward to seeing one. Fortunately the Zoo came through for me (and you guys); here’s a quokka (a Mama quokka apparently, see the baby in its pouch).
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