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This blog is about our driving trip and train trip in Western Australia. 

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January 4 – Arrival from Singapore

A very early morning to catch a taxi to the airport for our flight to Perth, Australia.  Our second trip on Singapore Airlines.  They run a very nice operation.  It seemed like 10 or 20% of the passengers had ordered special meals.  But they, and the rest of us, were served very efficiently.  We were impressed. 

We had a transfer pick up from the airport and were in our hotel by late afternoon.  We are in a one-bedroom apartment with kitchen (which we won’t use) and laundry facilities (which we will).

We had dinner in the little bar/bistro next door.  It was actually rather cool this evening when we headed out for dinner.  We ended up eating at the bar and bistro adjacent to the hotel.  Pretty decent food.

We spent some of the evening working on backup plans for several places on our Australia trip.  The entire country is experiencing major fires, and many are currently in the areas on our itinerary.  So we will need to have backup plans in case it is too dangerous to go to some of the places we were planning on visiting.

Took no photos today.

January 05 – Perth Bell Tower and Mint

We both slept in pretty late so by the time we left the hotel it was lunch time.  So it was off through Perth to find some lunch.

We found a nice restaurant in what used to be the old main Post Office.  The place was called “The Post” and the art consisted primarily of large sheets of stamps. 

This is in the old Post Office Building.

Then we walked down to the harbor to the Bell Tower.  

We had seen it a year ago when we were in Perth on our world cruise but there had been no time to tour it.  So today we went up to the top viewing platform and worked our way down.  It is a very interesting building and the bells have an interesting history.  Some of them are several years old and they previously were hung in the St. Martin in the Fields church in London.  When St. Martin was going to recast them Australia instead offered to take them in exchange for the raw materials to make new ones.

They also have the ANZAC Bell.  It is the largest bell cast in the Southern Hemisphere and it commemorates the 100th anniversary of World War I and the Australia and New Zealand soldiers who died during that war.

The bridge to the bell tower had chains that were covered with small love locks.  We have seen this in a number of places around the world, and have done it in China.

We then walked over to the Perth Mint.  The Mint was built in Perth because the major gold fields in Western Australia provided a good supply of gold.  It is still in operation but makes primarily collectible items.

The Mint has the world’s largest coin…a massive Australia Kangaroo solid gold coin that weighs one ton and has a face value of $1,000,000 Australian Dollars.  Today’s monetary value, based on the current price of gold, is $79,500,000.  As a collectible it is priceless.

We had a very good tour guide who was very informative.  

After a brief tour she took us into an area where they used to melt down the gold into bars.  She explained the process and then proceeded to pour a gold bar.  They have been using the same gold to make 7 bars a day, 7 days a week since 1993.  After each demonstration they just melt it down again. 

The mint also had lots of real gold nuggets and a large stack of bold bars on display.

We spent some time in the hotel and then went out to find a place for dinner.  Turns out a lot of business are closed as it is Sunday so we ended up eating at the same restaurant as last night. 

January 06 – Perth Art Walk

Perth has a lot of public art and we found an art walk map…so today is for walking the streets looking for art. 

Perth's started a major art project in 2017.  It consisted of the installation of 65 planter boxes and benches installed.  The boxes are all done by West Australian artists and are planted with native Australia plants.  We found a number of these boxes.

One of the more unusual pieces was "Dirty Deeds".  The artwork outlines on the sidewalk the two holding cells from the old Police Court.  And within the outlines were individual pavers that had the names and misdeeds of criminals held in the cells.  

We found a Mr. Davis who, in 1873, was detained for "Constantly roaming about from place to place and sleeping in the open air in the city."  Other than sleeping in the open the misdeeds sound familiar as we are certainly "roaming from place to place.

We also stopped in St. George’s Church.

In front of St. Georges was an art piece called "Ascalon".  It symbolizes the triumph of good over evil.  The pole is the lance of St. George, the white billow represents his cloak and steed and the base is the body of the dragon he slew.

There were also a lot of bronze statues.

One section of the art walk was through an alley that had a lot of very interesting graffiti art.

We stumbled upon these giant "paper airplanes" ...they weren't on the art walk map.  Don't know why, they were pretty interesting.

We also found 'Point Zero".  The plaque on the sidewalk at 1 Cathedral Square is the marker from which all distances to and from Perth are measured.  

The "Iconic" symbolizes a tree that was felled near here in 1829.  It commemorates the founding of Perth.

And our search for art afforded us the chance to see more of Perth.

It was pretty interesting to see a Tudor style building in a pedestrian mall in modern Perth. 

What an interesting day.