12-13 February - Perth


12 February
Left home early to catch public transport to the airport. Unfortunately there was a delay getting our crew up from Melbourne because of bad weather there. We left two hours late, but made up some time.

Isobel and Max met us at the airport. The plane was full of Rugby League players who were visiting Perth for a Rugby Sevens tournament. So their luggage seemed to be given priority, and we had to wait quite a bit.

It was only a short journey to their home and we were comfortably settled in. We had much to catch up on. More importantly we worked out how our plans would pan out for the few days we are here. Although Perth is three hours behind Sydney, we seemed to manage to get to bed at our normal time, even though our body clock was three hours later.

13 February

Another bright warm morning. Today we planned to visit Perth Zoo. As Isobel had not visited for some years she came along too. Isobel and Max’s place is very well situated so we could have taken a bus and then walked to the ferry, as we were planning on an afternoon in the city, but instead we drove. Everywhere in Perth is really only a short distance away.

After wandering around the zoo for a couple of hours, we had coffee near the ferry wharf. Isobel then went home and we took the ferry across to the city. With no luck finding the Information Centre (by request to Mr Google – you let me down!!) We headed for one of the lanes I had found with street art.

The first lane was not overly exciting but the second one was really very good. We were in the part of the city which was the original centre of the town. There were many older buildings scattered amongst the new along the two main pedestrian malls. We finally found an Information centre and picked up brochures for things were are doing when we leave on our road trip as well as information on Swan River cruises.

Having phoned some other friends and teed up a get together on Saturday, we headed back through the London Arcade – rather quaint – and hopped on a train back to our digs.





A rather gorgeous green frog



The enclosure for the orangutans is due for renovation. The current residents will be moved so we were lucky to see them



One of Perth's historic hotels. we lunched here with friends later in our visit

Perth waterfront








The London Arcade is a bit touristy. Not quite as historic as The Strand Arcade (Sydney) and The Block (Melbourne)





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