First impressions from Len.

Impressions of Australia, into our third day and what a fabulous three days its been, firstly the sunshine is just magnificant, one has to be very careful of course being a white tender skinned pommie but taking sensible precautions, such as sun screen rubbed and pushed into every wrinkle and crevice of which there are many to be found on my rather mature body these days, up to now these precautions have paid off.

My second impression Perth has made on me is the lovely housing estates and the wide open road system, traffic in general is quite light unless you hit peak hours such as evening hometime hours. We are staying with Heather, who is an old school friend and neighbour who left the UK as a fifteen year old back in 1961, Heather is one great host in fact she is the best making sure all my needs are attended to, well nearly all 😂 🤣. Heather has a typical lovely bungalow style house which the majority of homes seem to be here in Perth. The homes here are large, neat and very well screened by garden vegetation and yes I really could live here. Heather, on our first day took us on a whistle stop tour of some of the local beaches including one all my dog loving friends would salivate over, firstly it was a beach of almost silica type sand, so soft and white and great facilities to ensure that the beaches were kept not just clean but pure. Every fifty yards there were dog poo deposit bins with bag dispensers to ensure dog owners had no excuse for being lazy which incidentally heavy fines are enforced if one is lazy. Every other beach Heather showed us was of the same soft sand. Our next lengthy stop was at Kings Park, a superb area of tranquility and peace. The park is primarily a memorial park with beautiful coiffeured grasslands, there is a beautiful memorial overlooking the Swan River with every name of every poor lost souls of both world wars and subsequent conflicts that Australia has been involved in. Every tree in the park of which there are hundreds has at least one plaque and sometimes as many as three with a name of a fallen soldier inscribed on it. We had fabulous first day topped off with a surprise visit to a cemetery, 😂 a cemetery with a difference however. This cemetery had no headstones at all, just plaques set into the ground but the real surprise was that this cemetery was full of wild kangaroos, which allowed us to walk amongst them. This was a wonderful experience.

My last impression of Perth was a real learning curve for me, on our way home I asked if we could go to a supermarket in order that I might buy a bottle of whisky only to be told by Heather that supermarkets don't sell alcohol, WHAT? We had to go to what they call out here A Liquor Store. Cutting a long story short we went to one and now I am enjoying a dram of Monkey Shoulder. That's it folks but day two will follow shortly. Editor: Apologies for the order of the photos. They don’t exactly match Len’s story!