Pretty Perth

To borrow and tweak a quote from Lostprophets, Perth is not at the end of the world, but you can see it from here.  Perth deems itself the most remote city on the planet (Honolulu and a few other cities dispute this claim).  At over 2000 kilometers from the nearest city (Adelaide) of any size (Perth is actually closer to some Asian cities than fellow Australian cities), Perth is a city alone in the world.  But, with a population just under 2 million and all the modern conveniences of any city today, you do not sense its remoteness.

Side note of interest to those who remember American's first space flights - Perth is the city that turned on all of its lights to allow John Glenn to know/see when he was passing Australia in his space circumnavigation of the planet.

Perth is a city that is growing - big time.  When we were in Christchurch, we said that we saw more cranes in the air than in any other place I have ever been (due to the rebuilding after the devastating earthquakes).  Perth comes in a close second.  Perth is building like made, and if it is old and needs a fix up, that is happening too. 

Mineral wealth found in the deserts and surrounds of Western Australia (the state that encompasses the west half of Australia and to which Perth is the capital) helped to create Perth and have lead to its recent growth as new deposits and minerals are found out here.

When we went up the Bell Tower (shown below), we saw a huge development project being done right on the water right downtown.  The major Esplanade was closed off.  We were shown a development projection by the Bell Tower guide that shows a huge new waterfront/island project being developed to allow the Swan River to touch the city center.  It was absolutely gorgeous and a huge undertaking that is expected to be completed by 2016.  I can only begin to estimate the cost for this project, but it has to be in the billions of dollars (they are building a frickin island and that can't be cheap).

Perth looks and feels a little more western/American to me.  Where Melbourne and Adelaide felt more European, you would be hard pressed to distinguish Perth from San Diego - Perth having really started in the later 1800's.  It was quite a bit warmer in Perth - around upper 80's and lower 90's temps.  The smell of desert sands was in the air like what I experience in Phoenix or San Diego (on some days).  Even though they sit less than 10 miles from the Indian Ocean, it still feels a bit more like a desert city to me (we are told however that they are about to enter their wet season where it rains almost every day).

 

As the departure point for many of the mining fields and work sites that lay just to the east (which may be as much as a couple hundred kilometers), there is a bit of a fly-in-fly-out population to Perth as well.  The city streets were nearly empty on the weekend and the hotel costs almost doubled on the Monday rate versus weekend rate.  At the airport, as we were getting ready for our flight, you could see many of the mine city flights filling up with uniformed workers.

Perth Sights

OK - enough about the generals - how about some pics and sights?

We started our visit with a trip to the Perth Mint.  This mint hails from the days of the west Australia gold rush (1880's).  Today, it no longer serves as an active gold mint, but it does serve as a sanctioned hobby coin and collectable producer for the government (I take it that it serves kind of like the Franklin Mint in the US).  For such, they still have a certain reserve of gold and they offer daily tours of the old mint and its history.  So we got to see a gold pour and learn about the mining/minting business they undertook.  They also have the largest gold coin in the world on display - thing literally ways a ton (sorry couldn't get a picture of the insides for obvious reasons).  It is officially a $1,000,000 coin, but has been valued at $53 million (Australian dollars).  I think I saw K salivating.

We visited the Bell Tower.  The Bell Tower sits on the Swan River that runs from Perth to the sea and the tower provides an excellent view of the city and surrounds.  The tower was created in 2000 as a millennium celebration project.  It is a "bell" tower and tones the time as well as song at 11am each day.  The bells in the tower come from England's Saint Martin In the Fields church - a gift at the Millennium.  Above are some pictures of the tower, from the tower and below a picture of the tower and a video of some of the bells playing (not the big Saint Martin bells).

Two pedestrian only street blocks (Hay St and Murray St) form the basis of the shopping district,  Piccadilly Arcade (Arcade is Australian for shopping mall) and center city.  Off one is this city square containing some art work and fountain for the kids to play in.

 

 

In fact, like many of the cities in Australia, there is art all over the city.  K and I really liked this one of Kangaroos (kind of a national symbol).

Even normal looking buildings are transformed to art work in Perth.  Check out this building (called Council House) that sits on the main street (St. Georges Terrace). It is transformed to light-magic in the evening.  [Side story - The building actually goes through a whole series of color displays before writing out "City of Perth".  K and I saw this coming home from dinner one night.  K thought the "City of Perth" part so neat, we had to wait about 30 minutes for it to go through the entire display again.  Anyone needing lots of videos of Council House only has to see me and I can get you as many as you want. ... K is behind me right now and saying "it was not 30 minutes it was more like 15"... so I stand corrected.]

Perth sits on the Swan River that empties to the ocean (at Freemantle - see below).  It's a very wide river (at least near the city) and it makes the city that much more beautiful.  Here is a shot looking from our hotel room (downtown) toward South Perth and the Indian Ocean if you keep going.

Kings Park is the city's big park and botanical garden.  If you have read my posts, you know this is almost mandatory for cities in NZ and Australia.  I must say that I think Perth's takes the cake for beauty and neat features.  First, unlike most cities, Perth's park sits on a hill overlooking the whole city and Swan River valley.  So the views down are spectacular.

On top of that, the botanical garden is wonderful (my morning runs were a bit long just because of the wonderful warm mornings and beautiful gardens).  In the park, you find the entrance lined with huge sugar gum trees, neat fountains and this amazing elevated bridge through some of a rainforest canopy that fills a valley in the park (part of something called the Lotterywest Federation Walkway.

Kings Park is also the home to many monuments of Perth (the capital of Western Australia) to include the Eternal Flame and State Memorial (for WW I and other wars).

K and I also visited the Art Gallery of Western Australia.  This is a very nice museum of mostly Western Australian art.  Very "K approved" - in fact she said it was her favorite to date.  As I have said in other posts, I like it when a smaller museum tries to focus on their area versus provide a hodge podge of art from the world.  The only art in the museum that was not from WA was art that was an influence on the local artists.  In fact, you can see for each of the periods how the art of Europe (about 10-20 years back) influenced each group of artists.  Here is the museum and some of the pieces we liked.

While K was getting a pedicure, I also attended the Western Australian Museum.  This was the only disappointment of any museum I have been to in NZ or Australia.  Most have been fantastic.  This one is in major need of clean up, update, and organization.  Given how much and quickly Perth is building, I can't imagine it will be too long before this is addressed.

Freemantle

One side trip that K and I took was to the seaside town of Freemantle.  Freemantle sits on the Indian Ocean, at the mouth of the Swan River, and is a 20 minute train ride from Perth.  Freemantle was the original landing spot and colonization point of Western Australia.  However, lack of fresh water and escape from the Indian Ocean weather (can be bad during the rainy season), the capitol moved inland while the port remained and is still used today.

In Freemantle, one of the last surviving convict prisons used to house the original colony convicts is found.  We did a tour there.  Kind of depressing but historic and informative.  The prison actually operated up to 1991 as Western Australia's max security facility.  In fact, the tour guide made sure to distinguish the terms convict (original colony person transported from Britain - mostly Ireland and Scotland - for crimes - usually petty crime like stealing food or a sheep) and prisoners (people punished for violating the laws in WA after the prison was no longer used as a convict holding prison).  The prison was built in 1850 by the convicts - and still used pretty much the same way it was built until 1991 (including the use of a bucket for your toilet!).

On a happier note, we also visited "Cappuccino Strip" a street in Freemantle that is lined with non-stop cafés and Freemantle Market - a bizarre that includes your grocery and Walmart all in one.

We also had a chance to see the beach at Cottesloe beach (up from Fremantle) before returning to Perth.  We saw a lot of ships moving to/from Freemantle port.  The Indian Ocean was beautiful, but we heard a shark attacked a couple kayaking on the news the next day and tore up one of the kayaks (yikes!!).

So that was our trip to Perth Australia.  It's a long way to get here - even when you are already in Australia - but worth the trip.  If you want a sense of all Australia, you need to visit.

We just left Uluru today so my next posts will update you on Alice Springs, Uluru and the "Outback" (come back for the next posts and you'll learn why the nets - stylish aren't they?).

Hope everyone back home is starting to thaw out a little.  We are hoping it will be spring when we get home.