Perth Panorama. Part 1

Today is Day Five in Perth. Just two to go. We seem to have packed so much into our time here. We are staying with a school friend of Len’s, Heather Smaellie, and she has been an outstanding tour guide and hostess. Every day has brought a plethora of sights and sounds and tastes and tempos. Let me show you some of our favourite bits and then Len will continue to give you his first impressions of Australia.
We arrived at 5 minutes to midnight on Sunday evening after an ok flight from Dubai. Ok only because I don’t like long hauls and this was nearly 11 hours. But we can’t fault Emirates so far. It wasn’t the lovely Airbus 380 but this didn’t stop Len from bonding with the staff. He told our stewardess that she looked like Joan Baez and when she looked mystified he googled pictures and began showing everyone to see if they agreed! It’s a sign of your age when no one recognises your musical icons! The payoff however was that she gave him a double whiskey (18 year old Chivas Regal) to finish off his flight!
Monday was an easy going day with a lateish start and then a drive down the coast to Kings Park, stopping at a variety of beaches. We were struck by the doggy beach where you can take your pooches for a swim and then wash them down when they come back. The sand is so white and fine. And there has been lovely breezes as well to help cool things down. We saw some lovely Norfolk pines on the trip. Apparently they were planted so when the sailing ships broke a mast they could just chop down a tree for a new one. The trunks are so straight and strong.
Kings Park was beautiful. I adored the avenue of trees and the wide variety of Eucalyptus trees. The salmon coloured ones are awesome. There were lovely views across to Perth City and we watched the ferries going across to south Perth as Heather had promised us a trip on one on Thursday.
One tree in the gardens was called a boab tree and it is obviously a cousin of our baobab trees in Zimbabwe. The big one had been transported from Kimberley to Western Australia and replanted. An impressive feat given the size.

On the way home Heather made a slight detour and drove us through Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park which is a cemetery that has a troop of about 150 wild kangaroos living there. We got some nice pictures of them.

On Tuesday we spent the day with my niece Tammy and her mum Margaret, my brother’s wife, who is over visiting from South Africa. They took us to Taylor’s Art and Coffee House in the Swan Valley for brunch. Brilliant food and coffee and then a chance to browse Jude Taylor’s art work. I love the coffee and brunch culture in Australia! From there we then went on to Caversham Wildlife Park to see the Australian animals.

It was great to be able to get up close and personal with a wide variety of animals, birds and reptiles. We got to see a farm show where they demonstrated herding sheep and shearing sheep. And of course had the obligatory photos with the wombat and koala.

We have a little fish that is travelling with us and you will see him appearing in photos. He was meant to be handed over to our grandson Syavash in Dubai but we forgot so he is just going to enjoy seeing the sights on our epic journey! I put him up on a post by the pelican and nearly lost him as the bird made a bee line for him as I was snapping the photo. Same thing happened when I put him in front of a reptile but fortunately there was glass between us. And a toddler tried to snap him up when he was having his photo taken in the kangaroo seat! So exciting for him! We ended our day with a swim at Tammy’s and supper with the family.

Check back later for the rest of this story because I have no battery left!