Dateline Down Under - We're back on the Road!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Canning Vale, West Australia:

The Steve and Carol Show is officially back on the road today and we are out and on the road bright and early… well, not sure about the bright part, but we have more than 225 miles to cover today, plus a LOT of sight seeing, so we know it is going to be a long day. We have a new car now. Our little Holden is being fixed in a Fremantle garage, we have a Toyota Camry and we are ready to roll.

We are off to the Southwestern Region; also know as the Margaret River Region, of Southwest Australia. This is the very bottom southwest corner of the continent, and we have been really looking forward to this portion of our touring. It is loaded with beaches, wineries, forests, caves and light houses, all favorites of ours. It is also where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet, as well as home to the “Roaring Forties,” which is one of the nastiest stretches of Open Ocean in the world.

We hit the road with the early morning commute traffic going into downtown Perth until we make our turn to head on down south along the Roe Highway. It is a very clear, cool morning and the wind is once again blowing pretty hard. It has been howling all night, but there is a storm coming in off the Roaring Forties down at Cape Leeuwin by mid-day Thursday, so we gotta get going.

The road signs in Australia (at least in these parts) have frustrated both of us to some degree. As there are not a lot of direct highway routes into the city in the same sense as the States, you will think you need to get into a freeway going north, but the road sign shows south, because you have to go south before you can go north, if that makes any sense. We have also noticed the problem is compounded by the fact that our orientation is a little off here in the southern hemisphere, which is interesting. What we usually look at as north in the daytime sky usually turns out to be south. They do not put compasses in the cars here (at least the ones we are driving). It took us a week or so to figure this out, and Steve is just glad he is not flying a plane down in these parts, or we could be in for some big trouble!

We travel from Perth to Bunbury along the Old Coast Road as Sheena Lannin has suggested which takes us along side a number of nice beaches and small coastal villages. We are really surprised at the growth away from the main city of Perth. It appears many people are moving into the countryside, especially along the ocean front here. They have had news pieces on about the “Mortgage Stress” here in Australia, but you would never know it out here. They are building like gang busters everywhere we drive.

We arrive in Bunbury and drive through town. It is listed as “The Gateway to the South West of Australia” but we are continuing on toward another beach resort called Busselton, which appears to have a lot more activities for us touristas. We take a side-trip through a forest of Tuart Trees that are between 300 – 400 years-old, which is one of the last remaining natural forests of these trees in the world, on our way to Peppermint Beach, where the warning sign along the beach threatens Carol’s best friends, Snikes! The ocean continues to be just amazing along the beach front here. It is a vibrant teal green color to a darker green and crystal blue. We are not sure if the photos will do the colors justice, but it is truly beautiful. We are finding that Australian lawyers have studied their American brethren carefully, as we find signs warning us of everything from poisonous “mossie bites” to not performing foolish stunts among the rocks along the ocean. We have saved a few of the best of them for the Margaret River Trip Photo Album on our Picassa Photo Gallery. We could sure do with a LOT fewer lawyers in this world in our humble estimation!

Another thing different we have found about traveling in Australia is that you find bicyclists EVERYWHERE. Even on what they call Highways here there are stop lights, merging side-roads and people riding bikes, many of them out in the traffic lanes, so one must be attentive at all times. We pass a flock of them on the road heading toward Busselton.

We hit the beach resort of Busselton right just before lunch time – the main attraction here in on Geographe Bay is Busselton Jetty. It is the longest pier in the southern hemisphere at two kilometers in length. Built between 1865 and 1962, it even includes a rusty pair of rail tracks that are still used today to transport people on small trolleys. Of course, we have to walk the entire pier, which takes a few hours and helps us work up quite an appetite. You can see the pictures of our trek at our Busselton Photo Album. The Aussies, true to form, love their water sports, and the place is full of people doing all sorts of water-related things, from little ones learning to swim in the ocean (ties to ropes and floats under the watchful eyes of a couple of mom-life guard types) to scuba divers. We even see two people swimming the two klicks from the end of the jetty back to the main city beach. Unlike us, they appear to have absolutely no fear of sharks here. Sharks to Steve are what Snakes are to Carol!

We find what we consider to have been our best Fish and Chips experience to date since being here. The fish is “flake” (shark to Americans) and it is delicious. So delicious in fact, we are harangued by a ton of sea gulls while we eat, begging and crapping all over everything. Steve is looking around for a bat or something to keep them away, but they ARE persistent. We keep to our creed of never feeding any people food to any animal, so they go away hungry and noisy. We also come across one of the largest tree trunks either of us has seen in some time, right in the middle of the city park along the shoreline. Not sure what type of tree it is, and it is unmarked, but it has a huge trunk. We cruise the town on the way out and it is a picturesque little seaside resort town. It reminds us of small towns one finds off the beaten path in Hawaii, but not as touristy or crowded (except for seagulls). Again, the kids are back in school here, having finished their “summer vacation” the Monday after we arrived in Perth. The next big holiday here will be Easter Break, and the coastal resorts are girding for a huge influx of people on holiday as summer slips into autumn here Down Under.

We stop to gas up and ask for directions to Cape Naturaliste National Park’s north entrance and the store attendant tells us, “Do not miss driving down to Meelup (Mile-up in Aussie) Beach, and are we glad we talked with this guy. Meelup Beach (Place of the Moon Rising) is unbelievable in its beauty – it has now become our favorite place and on our short list of places to migrate to when we get tired of shoveling snow up in Pollock! The best way we can describe it is to take a combination of the South side of Maui (between the Seven Sacred Pools and about where Charles Lindberg is buried) in the Hawaiian Islands, throw in Point Reyes National Seashore (Eucalyptus trees) and Napa Valley in the autumn – just beautiful. It is a very small beach, and there actually three small bays along the road leading into the national park.

Cape Naturaliste National Park, we find later, runs all the way down the coast. There is a light house at the northern-most point (Cape Naturaliste) and another at the southern-most point (Cape Leeuwin, which means Lion in Dutch – named so by the first Dutch who explored here in a ship named the “Leeuwin”). We snag the park map and begin another bush hike that will take us around the cape below the lighthouse, with striking vistas of the Indian Ocean, the cape, Bunker Bay, and back toward Busselton. While we do enjoy the hike, the wind, the heat, the swarms of flies and mossies make hiking miserable, even with DEET on, they are relentless. We cannot imagine what it must be like out here on a still, hot day! Lighthouse tours are expensive here, and since we have already visited about every light house along the Oregon and California coastlines, we pass and stick to swatting flies and hiking. We come across a troupe of parrots that are jealously guarding what we suspect a nest. They are noisy and fly very close to us as we approach a stand of trees, so we head off through the bush in another direction to calm them down. Maybe they are just swatting the flies in the best way they know how, but we give them a clear berth.

We continue down the coast toward a small town called Yallingup, which is another cool Aussie town name. We had been told “up” meant “place of water” in Australian Aboriginal tongue, and we note now from a sign at the national park that “up” means simply “place of” in Aborigine, so we are learning to figure out whatever the word before the “up stands for, then just sort of add the last part on. Yallingup means “place of love,” which makes us smile. We seem to have also found a penchant for back roads here, some of them leading us into trouble as per last weekend at Pinnacles National Park. We check the map to ensure they are alright for two-wheel drive cars, and there is rarely any mention of “Hey, do NOT drive your (rental) car here,” so we just take the challenge and take our chances. We figure the American lawyers have not yet schooled the Aussie’s in this area of opportunity to sue others. Today’s adventure is along “Caves Road” and it is a nice (even paved and mostly two-lane!), shady highway that leads down the southwestern coast of Australia, passing through large forests, vineyards and beaches. Most of the vineyards here are covered with these huge nets, and Carol figures out it is to keep the Australian parrots, cockatiels and Magpies out of the grapes, which are just getting ready to harvest (remember, it is now September here almost – time for the crush). The wind continues to scream through the open windows in the car, but it is still warm so it feels good. It also allows us to smell the sea and the Eucalyptus trees along the road.

We come to a place called Canal Rocks, and Carol the geologist is out of the car with her Australian Geology Guide in hand. The rocks were formed some 750 million years ago before Gondwanaland and India collided. Today however, the rocks offer a spectacular wave show with the swells being driven against them by the fierce winds. We also come across a pair of crazy Aussie kids who are diving off this bridge into a very narrow, pitching channel between the rocks. These huge waves pound the rocks, the sea rushes into this narrow (and fairly deep) gorge, and then the water squirts out the other side in a rush. Steve is taking photos of the show and asks the young lady if she comes here and does this a lot? Her answer is, “not enough, Mate….” with a big smile on her face. We thought this was about as crazy as things would get today, but we are wrong.

Prevelly Park and all the surfing spots along the coast are our next stop – Bombie, Grunters, Boodjidup (no translation available), Surfer’s Point and the mouth of the Margaret River. Steve tried his telephoto lens out on a few young Aussie ladies sunning themselves on a float in the bay, and then turned his attention to a group of surfers, kite fliers and wave runners along the coast at Surfer’s Point. You can check the photos at the Prevelly Park Album on Google Picassa. The swells here are pretty large when the wind is blowing like today, and these folks just flock to the beaches in the area to test their skills. Some hitch up to their paravanes, fly out to a quarter mile off shore, and then ride back and forth across these huge ocean swells for long periods of time. While this is happening, there is (of course) another group of guys (at least in this group) standing around, drinking beer, making rude comments about the good or bad skills of those out in the water, and telling one another they are waiting “for the bigger stuff to come in…” They were quite animated in their language and actions so Steve asked one of the young men if he could take their group photo, and one of the guys replied, “Only if you are going to put it in a gay magazine back in America….” Steve popped right back at him, “Dude, I AM from San Francisco and gay magazines are the only magazines I shoot pictures for” with a deadpan expression on his face. The other guys began howling with laughter and ragged on the guys for being a “dumb arse…” Steve never did tell them if he was kidding or not, so there is probably a group of young Aussie surfers who will be buying every American gay magazine they can lay their hands on to see if they are famous or not! Also check out the cool camper van we took photos of in the parking lot here. Carol’s favorite Broadway play is “Wicked” and this is the name of one of the camper rental companies here in Western Australia. However, the interesting thing is the very unique way in which they are each painted. Not something you would usually see grandma and grandpa driving around in, but you see quite a few of them here from among various age groups, and people seem to like their style. They also come as 2 X 2 and 4 X 4’s.

We continued on to Lake Cave, checked out a couple of coastal caravan and camping parks to compare them with home (they are about the same as an American campground with just a different sort of ‘forest’ around them), and then moved inland toward the little town of Augusta, where we will stop for the night. The wind is REALLY howling now all the way to Augusta. There are pieces of trees, leaves, dust and all sorts of other interesting things being thrown across the road at our windshield as we continue south.

All of the sudden Steve spies something BIG – bigger than a chimpanzee, smaller than a gorilla, moving along the road up ahead. He slows the car down and asks Carol to get the camera out. Whatever it might be, it is NOT moving off the road, and it appears to almost have a stumbling gait. We are not interested in smacking anything with the front end of a rental car, so Steve slows way down as we move alongside whatever it is, and it turns out to be our first look at a wild Emu – first one of two we will see in the wild within about 24 hours. Think VERY large Ostrich – do not want another car accident, but Carol REALLY wants a photo. She is learning to use Steve’s Nikon so we drive along real slooooowwww, see if you can see the emu!

We finally arrive in Augusta about 7 p.m. We plan to check into our hotel real fast, go shoot some sunset/full moonrise photos at Cape Leeuwin which is about a 10-to-15-minute drive down the road, and then head back to town for a late dinner and bed. We pull up to the hotel, and IT IS NOT OPEN. Now, if you have been reading this blog with any consistency since we left home, you know we have been tempted to question our “luck” or “fate” since the day we left home on this trip, but we do have a paper reservation for the night at this hotel (it is a Best Western no less), and we are sort of dumb-founded. We ring the bell a few more times, and then notice a paper sign taped to the door that basically reads, “We are closing the office tonight at 6 p.m. If there is any sort of emergency call so-and-so at this number (and the number is listed).” We are tired and it has been a really long day. We also notice almost the entire town is closed up tighter than a tick, even though there is still about an hour of sunlight left. We decide to drive down the road where there is another hotel, go into the desk, and there is NO ONE THERE. We are waiting for the Twilight Zone theme song to begin playing. We walk around the corner to the drive-through liquor store (bottle shop), which IS open, and ask for help. The young man scares up a desk clerk for the one hotel about ten minutes later, who in turn calls the phone number we have for the other hotel– and low and behold – the evening shift for our hotel is at the pub drinking. She tells the first woman to send us back up the road, and she’ll come back and check us in – we now have a very nice room but it is almost 8 p.m. and we are informed that everything but one Chinese restaurant is closed by 7 p.m. in Augusta on weeknights. We forgo the photo-shoot and head over to the restaurant because we are tired, hungry (and in need of a stiff drink, in no certain order). We discover that the bottle shop is open until 10 or 11 p.m. ‘cause there is PLENTY of business going on there, so we’ll deal with that later.

If you recall our story in an earlier blog about our guide Daniel Boag and his brother the airline pilot who flies in and out of China; well, we met the air traffic controller’s sister tonight. We walked into the restaurant and she brusquely looked at the two of us and said, “Go Away! Come back five Minutes – No Time to Clean Table!” We just looked at each other and roared. She probably thought we were nuts, but we sat down and told her we would just sort of hang around until she had time to clear a table for us, if it was all the same to her! It turned out to be a really interesting evening for us, as we met an “almost American citizen” from Augusta who was back home visiting and seated at a table near us. Carol approached him and began talking with him about American and the elections – he was really excited to meet another American in such a small out-of-the-way place in Australia, tells her he cannot wait to do his first vote in the Presidential election later this year, and introduces her to his all of table mates – meanwhile Steve is charming the Chinese woman who runs restaurant about BBC Crime Shows (one is on the tellie in background and they are both very interested in it) – by this the time we get back to the Not Open Motel it is almost 10 p.m. and we are zonked – Bed

Thursday, February 21, 2008
Augusta, Southwest Australia

We are up, showered and gone by 0900. We have another long day of touring ahead of us, but there is so much to see and it is so beautiful down here we do not want to miss anything. For all of the pictures of our Augusta trip be sure to check out our Augusta Australia photo album on Google Picassa.

While Carol was taking a shower Steve was looking through one of those little booklets they leave in hotel in rooms all over the world, looking for a nice place to have breakfast (brekky here), and starts laughing hysterically. Carol runs in to find out what the hell is going on, as the T.V. news is not even on, which for some reason, always seems to humor Steve. Now you gotta understand Stevie is a little sick, and is a HUGE Beavis and Butthead fan. He and our son Dan can tell you any story line (if that definition can be properly used for a Beavis and Butthead show…) of any show. Well, anyway, there is this drawing of the local “veggie man” in the little booklet and his name is Steve and damned if he does not look just like a drawing of the Beavis character from the cartoon show. Of course there is a picture of this guy included in our Picassa vacation shots now and he does not even know he’s a star….

As we stop for fuel and a pair of huaraches for Carol we run into British man and his wife having same problem we had last weekend. His car is making some VERY rude noises, and the woman at the local garage/petrol station is telling him “Well, mate, the mechanic flaked out so there is no one around to look at or fix your car today.” He is, of course quite upset at this turn of events, but this is the only place in town for gas or repairs. He is still there fuming when we comeback through the town about three hours later on our way back north. Steve has no tools and knows nothing about newer autos, so we cannot help, but feel really bad because we have just been here. Again, our thanks to Rob Dellaway of Jurien Bay!

We had breakfast at this cool little restaurant called the “Colourspot” that is right on the Blackwater River in Augusta where it meets the Southern Ocean. The waitress is really friendly, and the food is great. When the Aussie’s say you get bacon for brekky here, they mean a LOT of bacon (done British style instead of those weasely little three strips we get at home), so Steve is in Heaven. The breeze is up and there are the beginnings of little cumulous clouds building. The waitress informs Carol the storm is due to arrive by about Noon in Augusta.

We head back to Cape Leeuwin, which sits at the South Western most point on the Australian mainland. This is the spot where the Southern and Indian oceans meet, and the location of the notorious “Roaring Forties,” one of the roughest and wildest stretches of Open Ocean in the world. Steve has read numerous books about sailors in everything from around the world racing yachts (Larry Ellison of Oracle fame lost his out here) to super tankers running into horrendous weather out in these parts. It is about 2,700 to the Kerguelen Islands out in the middle of nowhere to the southwest and about 3,400 miles to the Antarctic and the South Pole to the southeast. It includes the treacherous Bass Straight between the Tasman Sea and the Southern Ocean as well. The light house museum is full or sailor’s horror stories in these waters and Steve eats this sort of stuff up! This also gives us both a chance to wade in yet another ocean of the world, and the list keeps on growing. We have now added the Southern Ocean to the list!

We passed through Augusta and headed up the road again to Jewel Cave for another bush walk through a Giant Karri Tree forest and the huge Jewel Cave. The cave is one of the largest in Australia, with more than two km of passages that are almost 100 meters below the surface. Place is huge and Carol the geologist is fascinated with the place. The tour lasts well over an hour and it is well worth the time to stop by. We have some really good photos of the formations and minerals in the cave. To check the photos out go to the Jewel Cave Photo Album.

As we leave Jewel Cave it is beginning to rain, so we are watching the sky carefully, as they are predicting strong winds, hard rain and thunder storms in the area all afternoon. Also on our list for today is yet another is “scenic tour” of about 15 kilometers through another ancient Karri Tree forest located in Boranup. Boranup is amazing in that it is the furthest west that the third largest tree in the world, the Karri, lives in a native state. Some of the trees are more than 80 meters tall and are over 100 years old. We want to take some time to hike through these great forests, but also want to be mindful of the weather here in the bush areas. The trees are just immense and the forest is beautiful.

We have now learned that the Australian definition of a “Scenic Tour” usually includes a road that is a somewhat passable mix of two-wheel and four-wheel drive road, with plenty of exposed rocks and other stuff just waiting to puncture tires. After our experience of last weekend we are both wary and take it real easy. We actually see road signs that limit speeds to 40 kph (about 25 mph) along the road, which Steve states will probably tear the struts out of the front end of the car if we try and drive this fast. We pass a lot of 4 X 4 tracks out here, and only see three other vehicles back on this road… one of them is a 4 X 4 UTE (pick-up). Note to self – NO MORE “Scenic Tours.”

The wind is howling now, and the rain is moving between spits, fits and downpours, so we are very happy to get out at the other end of the “scenic tour” and back onto a paved road. On the recommendation of our breakfast host we decide to head for a small winery way out in the sticks east of the Town of Margaret River called “The Berry Farm.” We stop along the way and take photos of the thunder showers which are pretty violent on one side of the road. The sun is shining along the other. This is an amazing country, and we love the beauty and violence of the weather here. It is a lot like the Sierra on a hot summer afternoon up around the Carson Pass area…. Everything today but the lightning! The rain smell is strong, and it is mixed in with that of the cattle herds, grasslands and Eucalyptus trees. We just pull over, pop down the windows and enjoy, until the rain forces us to roll the windows back up and move on again.

We run out of pavement once again (this is becoming a standard thing for us here) and we follow a dirt road for a couple of miles and end up at the winery, just in time to be the last customers for ‘afternoon tea” (lunch) before they close to prepare for dinner. Steve finds another pack of new little friends (see the photos at the Berry Farm Album in Picassa) including a very large black, whitish-silver and yellow humming bird, and Carol picks out a special bottle of wine to drink on her 50th birthday, as we will be traveling to Tasmania from Cairns that day, and this too shall be a long day.

We leave the winery and head into Margaret River to purchase some Australian Meat Pies, which we are becoming addicted to, for a late dinner when we arrive home. They have all of these wonderful flavors of pies here, and Carol like the Chicken and Veggie pies, while Steve prefers “Shepherd’s Pie” or Minced Beef and Cheese. So far “Mrs. Mac’s authentic Pies” are our favorites, but we have sampled a LOT of meat pies since getting here, and we plan to sample a LOT more! The town is large and very busy. It is the largest tourist town in the area, mainly because of the local wineries. As we have plenty of those in Napa, we decide to just blow town and continue back up along the coast enjoying the late afternoon views.


We drive back up to a salt water lake known as Lake Clifton at Lake Clifton National Park. There we take another short hike to view the geological formations known as Thrombolites (Microbolites that are not to be confused with Lobstradites from the “Gunslinger” for you Stephen King fans). We also finally see our very first Black Swan, which this entire area, including the City of Perth, views as its bird of note. We have been here three weeks and this is the first one we spot. As we leave the park we are driving down this narrow, single lane (at least paved) road and Carol yells, “Stop!!” She has spied a herd of some 30 to 40 kangaroos along the side of the road in the bush. We pull over and try to take video shots of them, but unlike our pals at the Serpentine Falls National Park last week, these guys do NOT like people, so they are bounding all over the fields. It is really cool to watch them go along as a herd however. They are very fast and the just sort of spring along. They actually bounce quite high and forward as they move along. After seeing them up close last week, it is a real event to watch them in their “native” habitat where they shy away from people.
Steve has become the “round-about” expert driver here over the past few weeks, and now does not hesitate to even jump in-and-out of the multi-lane round abouts, which to the American driver, is simply a definition of insanity. Thank God we haven’t discovered round-abouts in America yet. He has even been blabbing about doing a “Double-mini” (something he saw on BBC’s “Top Gear” last weekend) and Carol shudders at the thought.

We continue back on into Canning Vale as the sun sinks into the Indian Ocean, and decided to end the evening with a few more moon photos. While the storm clouds have remained south as we have returned home the wind is still blowing quite hard here (hard enough to wiggle the tripod for the camera on the back patio), so the storm down south must be really rip-roaring. There is also the threat of another cyclone up north. Gee, what fun!

Meat Pies and a nice glass of wine for dinner, and it is off to bed. So until tomorrow’s adventure begins, we remain, Steve and Carol, wandering around the world.

Friday, February 22, 2008:

Friday is laundry day and beach day, however it is so windy we decide to just get some sunshine in the back yard, as we have no desire to go out to Cottlesloe Beach and get sand blasted. This house has become our house, and we feel so comfortable lounging around here, just as we would back in good ol’ Pollock Pines, except we noted that it is once again snowing back there and our tans are doing quite nicely here, thank you…

We have also been invited to John and Karen Crickmore’s house for a BBQ this evening. They are the poor people who live around the corner from Trevor and Sheena’s house, and have had to come over numerous times to tell us the alarm was going off before we got it fixed. Spent the entire evening with them, learned they (like many, many people here) emigrated from the U.K. some 28 years ago, and have been very successful. We are learning a lot about the local people and the Australian culture here, which of course, is the biggest reason we take these little jaunts! John showed us his latest “mid-life” crisis a police red Mazda RX8. Steve tried to talk Carol into getting one and she said her usual “only when you get that million dollar life insurance policy” until she sat in it. Now Carol wants one of her own. We are not sure how well it will do in five feet of snow but as Carol says “it’s really pretty!” Ahhh leave it to Carol to turn a fierce driving machine into something “pretty!” We had a wonderful time with John and Karen and learned so very much about their lives, their family and Australia.

The Aussie’s have a lot in common with Americans, and they really are staunch allies of ours. We are amazed at the number of people who have spoken with us about Iraq and other American events, and their common basic attitude is, “Hey, you guys are our best ally. We know if the brown stuff hits the fan over here some day, you guys will jump right into it with us, so we feel the same way about you.” Right on ya’ mates!

Saturday, February 23, 2008:

Today begins our final week here and we are both extremely unhappy about that!

We got up early this morning and drove to Perth, our destination for the morning with the Royal Perth Mint this morning, and it was a really cool look at the history of the Western Australian state’s beginnings, as just like in California, they had a gold rush here in the early 1890’s which helped open up the state for settlement. The Perth Mint is a member of an elite group of world mints whose pure gold, silver and platinum legal tender coins are trusted without question. Like the Australian Nugget, its Australian Kookaburra Silver Coin Series and Australian Lunar Gold and Silver Coin Series are extensively sought after by bullion investors worldwide. Andrew, our tour guide invited us back for the 2099 centennial and promised a gold brick to all of us. Carol said she thought she would try to make it till then, just to get the gold!!! In addition to finding out about the history of the gold rush in Australia, we also had the opportunity to watch our tour guide pour enough gold to create a gold bar. It was pretty amazing. We have often said how kind the Aussies have been to us and we met a woman today at the Mint who personified all of the kindness we have seen. Her name is Margaret and she had brought her grandchildren to the mint. She asked us some questions and we spent almost an half hour talking with her. We explained what had happened last weekend and she gave us her email and phone number and told us if we had ANY problems to give her a call. Margaret has been added to our blog and we just want to say thank you for your kindness to strangers!! As photography is not allowed we took some pictures of the outside building and you can find them at the Perth City Photo Album on Google Picassa would encourage anyone who is interested to check out the Perth Mint Website located at http://www.perthmint.com.au/

We also picked up our tickets for the Rottnest Island (more later on this trip) excursion next week. We will ride bikes all over the island and spend the afternoon diving with the fish and sea life, which is why we are both working on getting some sun before we do this.

We also had the opportunity to go to the Swan Bells in Perth. The Swan Bells fascinating historic content, its distinctive design - resulting from a major architectural competition and it's prize location combine to produce a distinctively different attraction. It has become an icon for Perth and Western Australia.

Swan Bells acts as a custodian of tradition for the over six million Australians who regard their ancestry as English and for all Western Australians as they carry a proud love of their worker roots. This historic ring of bells was gifted to the people of Western Australia as part of the national Bicentennial celebrations. The Swan Bells include the twelve bells of St Martin-in-the-Fields which are recorded as being in existence from before the 14th century and recast in the 16th century by Queen Elizabeth I.

The bells were again recast between 1725 and 1770 by three generations of the Rudhall family of bell founders from Gloucester in England, under the order of the Prince of Wales who was later crowned as King George II. They are one of the few sets of royal bells and are the only ones known to have left England. From one of London's most famous churches, in Trafalgar Square, the St Martin-in-the-Fields bells have rung out to celebrate many historic events. We had the opportunity to listen to the bells. It was pretty cool.


Then off to Fremantle for the “Fremantle Saturday Market.” We have been to Fremantle a bunch of times since we arrived here, but not for the market. Fremantle is sort of a mixture between Santa Cruz and Berkeley in California. We spent the afternoon looking at all of the TUPAS (Totally Useless Piece A S…) for sale, along with some mighty fine fresh fish, fruits and veggies. They even have impromptu street performances happening, so we enjoyed those. We enjoyed the Singing angel. Check out the pictures at our Google Picassa Website.

We are off to Rottnest tomorrow so more on the next blog. Until then we remain Carol and Steve, reporters from Down Under.