Perth 1

Hi everybody.  No we haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth.  We are camped just out of Perth and doing the tourist thing in and around the city.  We decided to keep all our Perth sightseeing in one blog, hence the quiet spell.  Sorry to cause you all so much worry.  So here goes.

Wednesday 21^st September

Welcome to Perth.  We woke up to a cold wet windy day.  After the morning’s school work, we went for a drive into Midland, which is the closest Shopping Centre to us, and also the closest place for us to catch the train into Perth City.  We had a drive around and found the Railway Station and generally familiarised ourselves with the area. We then went back to our cold wet soggy motor camp.  What a change after all the beautiful weather we had experienced coming down the west coast.

Thursday 22^nd September

We woke up to wet blustery showers.  As the morning wore on the weather improved. After School Work we went into the village of Mundaring which is just up the road from our motor camp, and called at their Visitor Centre.  They suggested we visit the nearby Mundaring Weir, which is a huge dam built in the late 1890’s, to supply water for the gold mining towns of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie 600km away on the edge of the Nullabor Plain. It was a huge undertaking in its time, and there was a lot of controversy about it.  The engineer who designed the whole scheme received lots of criticism, and ended up committing suicide before the scheme was finished.

One of the stabilizing legs on the caravan had seized up so we decided to head into Perth to find a caravan yard to get a replacement.  We ended up in the suburb of Kenwick on the southern outskirts of Perth, where we managed to get a new one.  On the way back to camp we drove past Perth International Airport.  From our motor camp we can watch the planes on their final approach to the airport, and it seems there is a plane going overhead about every 5 minutes.

On the road leading down to our camp ground we saw one of the biggest mobs of kangaroos we have seen in Australia in a paddock beside the road.

Friday 23^rd September

School work again and then we drove into Midland where we caught the train into Perth City.  We wandered around the streets, enjoying the performances of the various buskers and entertainers, and admired a huge chalk painting of a pavement artist.  We ended up down at the waterfront by the Bell Tower,

where we could look up at the skyscrapers that form central Perth. 

We then walked back through an old fashioned shopping mall, and wandered through some of the huge shopping complexes like Myers, before going back to the train station for the trip home. 

The train makes 14 stops between Midland and the city. At one of the stations a woman got on and as she walked past us we were nearly knocked out by the stink of her body odour.  Just our luck, there was a vacant seat next to Christel, and that’s where she sat.  We tried holding our breath, but you can only do that for so long.  Thank goodness she only stayed on for a couple of stops, and when she stood up to get off, a huge brown cloud of B.O. followed her. We all took a deep breath and held it until she was off the train., Yummy!!!!

Saturday 24^th, Sunday 25^th September

While mucking around at the motorcamp this morning we discovered a hole about the size of a 50cent coin had been punched in the front of the caravan just below the roof level.  It must have been caused by a rock flying up somewhere as we came down to Perth. So it was another trip into town to buy some sealant before any more rain got in.  Bit of a bugger as we have been so careful with the van.  Hopefully our Insurance Company will come to the party.

There are several kids here for the weekend so we haven’t seen much of Cameron.  We decided to stay around camp for the weekend so he can make the most of having some kids to play with. It’s good for him to mix with kids after spending so much time with just us for company.

Monday 26^th September

Away back up in Darwin or somewhere, in a K Mart, Cameron had seen a particular LEGO set that he had set his heart on.  We told him if he kept saving his money he could afford to get it once we got to Perth.  Of course we weren’t allowed to forget it, and as soon as we got here to Perth we had to go hunting for it. Unfortunately, every K Mart we went into had sold out of it.  He was getting quite downhearted about it.  We even tried Target and Big W, all without luck.  

So while we were in Perth Central we had a look in the Myers Shopping Complex by the railway station. Sure enough they had it in stock.  K Mart’s price for the set was $119. Myers price was $169.  He had saved up $120 and was really hacked off when he saw the price at Myers.  We told him we would keep looking as there were lots of K Marts in Perth. 

We had heard about a huge shopping mall called Carousel, in one of Perth’s suburbs, so decided to have a look there.  Again nothing in K Mart, but there was another Myers Store there, and sure enough they had it.  And would you believe it, they just happened to have a toy sale on, and their price was $84.  Was he a happy boy!!!

On our way back from there we took a small detour and drove past one of the houses Phillip lived in when he was working here in Perth about 25 years ago.

Tuesday 27^th September

Another showery day, so after school work we decided to visit the Western Australia Museum which is in the centre of Perth.  We took the train in again, no smelly woman this time, thank god, and then had a short walk to the Museum. We spent a very interesting 3 or 4 hours viewing the various displays, including one hall with stuffed animals, another with hundreds of birds and another with thousands of butterflies.  They also had a huge life size dinosaur in the entranceway.

Wednesday 28^th, Thursday 29^th September

We stayed around the camp for two days doing school work and washing and things.  Cameron spent most of his time buried in his new LEGO set, making a huge truck and trailer and two cars.  He did the whole think himself without any help from us and was a very proud boy when he showed us the finished product.