Perth II--Free Dolphins and Jailed Convicts

It's hard to catch, in photographs, the thrill of dolphin-watching.  You're left, after the morning's excitement, with a couple of shots of fins cutting through the water and one flying leap.  Still, Dave and I did have a wonderful time on our dolphin watching expedition, south of Perth.

 

We fortified ourselves with a breakfast of scones with cream and jam, as we waited for our boat to arrive.  Even fast food places sell a version, with little plastic containers of jam and cream squirted out of a can.  No matter the version, it is addictive.

We were just a few miles from shore when the dophins caught up with us.  They dashed alongside the boat in groups of three or four.

 

After we had our fill of dolphin-watching, we cruised around beautiful coral islands.

 

 

 

We checked out the birds relaxing in the bushes, nesting on the rocks, and jabbering on the shore.

 

 

One seal swam up to our boat, but his daddy and uncles lay like lifeless, gray rocks on the beach.

 

We left Michael, this morning, at the Boart Longyear drilling rig manufacturing plant in Perth.  He is working there this year as a finacial analyst.  Michael introduced us to Pietro, the French Canadian plant manager, and to the engineers working near his "cube."  We agreed to meet up with Michael after work, in Fremantle.

 



Michael has told us, many times, about how much he loves Fremantle.  It is the old Western Australian port which has picturesque buildings from the 1800s, but is still the bustling harbor for Perth.  As Dave and I explored the Fremantle wharf, I was intrigued by a Portuguese sailing ship from the 1600s which had been renovated and was now flying the Australian flag.

Michael recommended that we stop for lunch at "Little Creatures," on the wharf.  It was one of my favorite restaurants in Australia.  It had crispy pizza and fresh salads, as well as traditional Australian/English favorites like sticky toffee pudding.  Little Creatures was located in an old warehouse-turned-brewery, and had tons of ambience, as well as crates of beer stacked high.

 

 

 

 

Dave and I wandered up and down the wharf, appreciating the mix of boats, restaurants, people, and statues of fishermen and mermaids.

 

 

 

 

We stopped at the Shipwreck Galleries of the Western Australian Maritime Museum, where we saw the ruins of the Batavia, a Dutch sailing ship which was wrecked off the Western Australian coast in 1629 but wasn't discovered until 1840.  Historians have reconstructed the soap opera of the shipwreck, including mutiny, cannibalism, starvation,  and ultimate release, executions, and reconciliation.

 

Michael joined us by 4:30, and showed us around the spectacular main buildign of the Western Australian Maritime Museum.  The sailboat that won the America Cup for Australia hung from the ceiling.  There were all manner of other treasures, as well.  We especially enjoyed a video on sea trade through the centuries, seen through the eyes of traders from different coutnries in different eras  We also enjoyed photographs from the early 1940s, when Darwin, in northern Australia, had been bombed by the Japanese, Singapore had been occupied, and the Australians feared that Perth might be the next Japanese target.  Americans deployed ships to Perth to strengthen its defenses.

 

 

On our way into downtown Fremantle, we passed the Round House, the jail from the early 1800s. 

We wandered past the many colonial buildings from those 1800s boom days.

 

 

We lingered at the Fremantle market, where we checked out the fresh fruit and bought Michael more twizzlers (Australian version).

 

 

Finally it was time for our torchlight tour of the old Fremantle Gaol.  We were each issued a tiny flashlight, and it was wonderfully spooky to wander through the cell blocks and hanging room.  Of course, prisoners leaped out at us from solitary confinement and crashed down from upper levels in  suicide attempts (the suicide attempt was a dummy, actually).  This was Michael's fourth or fifth tour of the jail.  He says there are websites listing the most picturesque jails in Australia.  Since Australia was originally a penal colony, there are many of them.

 

 

 

 

We finished the evening at Gino's, a Fremantle Italian restaurant full of bustle and hearty garlic bread and pasta.

 

Perth I--The Wombat and His Friends

"Perth has the best animal park in Australia," Michael said. That is a major recommendation, because Australia is all about animals.  Australia broke off from the world landmass long before the rest of the continents split up, and so it has a whole range of native species that exist in the wild nowhere else. 

a kookabura

When we arrived in Perth on October 4, 2012, we drove straight to Caversham Wildlife Park.  Just as Michael recommended, we headed immediately for Molly's Farm Show.  We arrived in time to see a shrewd sheep dog round up a flock of sheep and herd them into a pen, guided only by a few whistles from his master.

 

We then watched a sheep being sheared, with the dark, dirty wool falling first to the ground and then pounds of the snow-white under-wool. 

 

 

A cute crowd of elementary school kids sitting near us was summoned up front for a race to see whose lamb could guzzle down a bottle of milk the fastest.

 

Next stop was "The Wombat and His Friends" show.  Just as Michael suggested, we rushed right for the wombat as soon as visitors were invited into the ring to meet the animals.  Dave and I were the first to pose with the wombat, a passive, furry, teddy bear-looking creature, before hordes lined up for their photos with him. 

There was a whole range of other animals to examine as well.  There was a white kangaroo sipping from a bottle, a rat-like marsupial, and a possum.

 

 

There were a couple of owls and some lizards.

 

 

We then wandered through the areas of the animal park representing the different sections of Australia, with their distinctive climates and animals.   We passed a parrot, cockatoo, some bats, a spiky echidna, and a pack of dingos, or wild dogs.  In a recent Australian murder case, a mother claimed that a dingo had stolen away her toddler, but the court convicted her anyway.  Later, there was proof that dingos can catch and kill little children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw a wallaby, similar to a small kangaroo, whose baby was leaning out of the pouch and munching grass, just like his mom.

We lingered in the koala cage, where koalas piled up like stuffed toys.

 

 

We also hung out in the kangaroo enclosure, where kangaroos lounged around like lazy dogs.  Our favorites were the kangaroos with strange white fur and the mother kangaroos, with their baby's long feet hanging out of their pouches.

 

 

 

 

We met Michael in downtown Perth, after his workday was over.  We wandered through Perth's Museum of Contemporary Art and the amphitheaters and other public areas surrounding Perth's museum square.  There were some interesting exhibits at the museum and some strange ones, too.

 

 

We then strolled along the Swan River, lined with palm trees.  We looked back at Perth, with all its skyscrapers.

 

 

 

Michael showed us his sleek, modern apartment, right across the street from the beach.  We could watch the breakers roll in from his living room window.

 

Michael showed us the Tibetan painting which he'll hang in his hallway back in SLC, and the Balinese art that he collected on his last trip to Bali.

It was soon time to leave for our dinner reservation at "The Prophet," an excellent Lebanese restaurant. 

 

 

We also stopped by the Perth Temple, one of four Mormon temples in Australia.