SATURDAY & SUNDAY, 16th - 17th June 2012
Yesterday, 15th June, we drove from Albany to Perth. The wind was pretty horrific and made towing the van quite yukky. Quite a lot of trees had been uprooted and branches down everywhere, evidence of the terrible winds that came across last night. I believe Mandura copped it really bad, with many yatchs and boats tossed into each other from what we saw on the news. Many areas are still blacked out.
We rang ahead to the Caravan Park at Caversham in Perth to be sure we would be able to get in and they said it was fine - they finally had power back after 15 hours!
The woolshed incorporates the local Information centres, along with several speciality stores and a cafe.
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| LIL, I BET YOU WOULD LOVE THIS SHOP! |
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| The cafe also had an outdoor area, but the weather was not kind enough to enjoy it today. |
Saturday was drizzly, but we took a drive down to Freemantle, with the intent to visit the Freemantle markets. Sadly, like many of the larger markets, this one is also now more a permanent market and prices are similar to any retail shop. Not a lot of home-made individual items there. So, we went for a walk around the port. Amazing I must say what we could have bought if we were in a party mood!
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| This is how you cross the railway tracks in WA. |
Now I did offer to buy this guy's gear for Greg (being a McNeil, scottish blood and all), but I think Greg was scared he may have to perform for the crowd and as we hadn't purchased any party herbs he was a little shy so I took the offer back. Mind you, I think I could really handle chasing Greg around in all that leather - look out Mel Gibson! A new Braveheart could be in the making, less a few tattoos and blue paint *lol*
Some of the authentic buildings here are just magnificent
The buildings have been restored and are maintained magnificently in Freemantle and the stonework is phenomenal. Hard to imagine how they did all this years ago all by hand.
The clocktower
After looking around here, we headed up the coastline back towards Perth and checked out the beaches for a little while. These beaches are completely different to the southern coast and our eastern coast, but there is a huge conservation effort going on, especially for the coastline and the marine animals and plants in there.
No anchoring is allowed, but there are bouys stragetically placed around some reef area that fishers can tie up to when fishing in the allowed areas.
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| Just outside Freemantle port on the Northern Side |
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| Shag found drying itself |
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| The Sun dial |
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| We think this was a Surf Life-saving Building |
We caught the train into Perth city and after picking up our tickets for Cocos Island, we made a visit to the Perth Mint. Another magnificent building and a very interesting history with it. The tour didn't take up too much time, but we got to see how the gold is melted and formed into ingots and slabs, in the old fashioned way too!
Unfortunately, no photos allowed in the mint (for a few obvious reasons I guess!),but this is what it looks like from the outside.
SUNDAY, 17th June 2012
Today I went for a look around a quaint little touristy town called Guildford. Greg, not being a shoppy kinda guy opted for staying at the van and checking out a little leak in the roof, so he dropped me down-town and went back for the silcone treatment!
In Guildford, I came across an amazing Museum of Taxidermy. Some astonishing items in here as you can see -
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| Kudu |
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| Oryx |
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| Wildebeeste |
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| American Bison and Puma |
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| HOMO SAPIENS (not too sure what happened to him, maybe this was what was left after the critter below got hold of him) |
Well, Greg fixed the roof and came to pick me up but we had lunch first at a nice little cafe - but I didn't have one of those: You had to cook them yourself and I already had dinner under control for once. Ah well, next time.
Whoo Hoo! off to Cocos Keeling Islands tomorrow..............
So, until we get back next week, here's wishing you all a very happy week xoxoxo
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