May 13 ... Perth

Today we saw just what a beautiful city Perth is. A lot of planning continues to go in to making this a most attractive and functional city. There are waterways and parks everywhere and a number of big engineering projects underway, like a new Underground rail system, a massive Entertainment Complex, a redevelopment of the Burswood Centre and a new Basketball Stadium. We also noticed that many of the new buildings have retained the original and very attractive frontages of the old ones they are replacing. These are separate from, but still act as entrances to the new highrise, and they are usually very elaborate sandstone structures.

An Original Facade

Another Historic Frontage

This helps to give the city a lot of character and, I think, make it quite unique. Even the highrise are attractive buildings. Very often in glass, they reflect the surroundings, and there are literally trees everywhere.

There is a freeway here somewhere!

Even the two shopping malls are lined with trees and new areas like East Perth have many residential "streets" that are deliberately designed to be pedestrian only. In all cities there are less attractive areas but we certainly did not see any today.

 For most of the day we used the Perth Tram to negotiate the city area. Mum had woken with a very sore hip so we had to eliminate walking as much as possible.

The Perth Tram

The Perth Mint

The "tram" left from the Barrack St Wharf  at 9.30 and our first stop was The Perth Mint, a beautiful old building. We took the tour option but it was quite a rip-off really. The Mint is really just a show place now; it only produces decorative coins and commemorative items. We had a short history talk and then went to the Gold Pour. It was okay but nothing new. We checked out the vault and the 2nd biggest nugget still in existence, the Normandy, weighing in around 26kgs, and had a good look around the shop with its EXPENSIVE jewellery and many pink diamonds! Dad bought such a lot of jewellery and coins from the Mint when he was alive that Mum felt compelled to continue the tradition and got herself a very nice pair of earrings as a memento. After a tasty early lunch we were back on the tram and continued our tour.

Mum was keen to see the Burswood Entertainment Complex being a keen tennis fan for many years. They are actually knocking down the Tennis Centre and relocating it to the new Entertainment Complex, but the Casino is a spectacular construction.

Inside the Burswood Casino

The proposed new Entertainment Complex

Fortunately the tram takes brief "rests" of 10 - 40 mins in some places so you can get off and have a quick look around. Garry was very impressed with the 18 hole golf course which only cost $41 to play a round and this includes a cart ... he said this is even cheaper than Tenterfield!

The Burswood Casino

From here we wove our way around the city, chugging past various public gardens, new constructions, sporting grounds like the WACA, and new developments, many of which Garry and I will return to next week for a better look. I particularly liked the East Perth area where many of the new housing areas look like they have been transplanted from Europe, with very Italian frontages and lots of flower boxes.

The Narrows Bridge and city skyline

The Swan River from Kings Park

 Finally we ended up at Kings Park. We already knew this was an amazing space, really huge and with  views equal to any in the world. Much of the park is natural bushland, and we only had 40 mins there, so we just had a quick look from the main viewing areas and we will try to find a day to go back and have a good walk around.

Kings Park

A bit more of a drive around and through the city and then we were back at the Wharf around 2.30pm. As it was early we decided to visit The Bell Tower. As we arrived the bells were ringing and it was lovely. The Perth Bells are marketed as the biggest musical instrument in the world (not sure about that!!) and the tower is certainly an impressive structure, 82.5m tall glass spire surrounded by copper sails which denote WA's mining history. It did offer good views as promised but we had seen much better from Kings Park. Inside we read a little of the history and checked out the huge bells, 12 of which came from London and are hundreds of years old. The claim is that they were rung out when Captain Cook returned in 1771 from discovering Australia. The tower does not rate as a "must do", more a "must see"(especially at night) and perhaps a "must hear"!

The Bell Tower

More bells.

We just had time for a quick coffee at home before Garry had to head off to pick Morgan up from the airport. Again we had been most fortunate in getting another perfect day weatherwise. Mum, and we, have certainly had the opportunity to see Perth city, and its beaches, at their very best.