We are
finally on dry land! It didn’t go unnoticed
by those of us on the ship that we’ve been at sea for 14 days. That’s the incubation period of the coronavirus. Maybe it was a coincidence…who knows but we
all arrived healthy and let’s hope we stay that way. About 800 new people came aboard today give
or take.
We are
actually docked in Fremantle a smallish city at the mouth of the Swan River. We will explore Fremantle tomorrow but today
we made the trip into Perth.
This area
first got attention from the British in the 1820’s who wanted to develop it but
there was a problem, a severe shortage of labor, so the they starting shipping
convicts here between 1850 and 1868 to help establish Fremantle and Perth. In all 9,721 convicts were transported to the
area. They even built their own prison
in Fremantle; it was only decommissioned in the 1990’s and is now a UNESCO
world heritage site as it is the only prison actually built by the prisoners. We’ll probably see it tomorrow.
Once off the
ship and through Australian customs we were greeted by the local tourist office
volunteers, they were great. I already
knew I wanted to take the train into Perth but they gave us advice on where the
ATM’s were (very important as we had no money) and how to get around once in
Perth.
To get from
the cruise terminal to the main road you have to take a pedestrian footbridge
and there was another tourist bureau person there to help out…same at the train
station and they even put someone at the ticket machines to help you
there. Wonderful help at every
turn. This is the train taken from our
balcony on the ship.
The train
from Fremantle to Perth takes about 30 minutes, it’s a commuter line with
several stops. The cost is $4.80 Australian
one way so for the two of us it came to $6.59 USD. Of course, there were a number of people from
our ship on the same train. There was
also an American woman whose daughter lives in Perth, the women visits from
Michigan for several weeks during the winter each year. She was really helpful giving all of us some
tips on Perth.
Once in
Perth we decided to go directly to King’s Park, just outside the city. To get there we took the number 935 bus for
free just a couple blocks from the train station. Again, people could not have been more helpful,
the bus driver helped us with the best stop to get off in the park and told us
how to get back into the city (using the same free bus). The park is beautiful with great views of the
city. They had an extensive botanical
gardens and a raised walkway so you could walk among the treetops.
Once back in
town we walked down by the river and went up to the bell tower to get the
view. We spent some time talking to one
of the guys who worked there and he told us a lot about Perth. Perth is the capital of Western Australia and
is considered to be the most isolated large city in the world. I asked him if people drive across country,
like people do in the States, and he said no…you could but no one would do
it. The highway is for long haul
truckers. Most people fly (5 hours to
Sydney) or there is a train that goes across the southern part of the country. Most people in Australia live on the coast,
the interior is pretty barren.
We liked Perth
a lot, a very nice city with friendly people everywhere you turn. There aren’t a lot of ‘must see’ sites but it’s
a pleasant, clean and well laid out city surrounded by the Swan River. The
weather was hot, near 90 degrees but there was a nice breeze all day so we
really didn’t feel it. Once we got back
to Fremantle though…the breeze was gone and we could feel the heat. We wanted to pick up a few things so we went
up to Target…yes Target. Same name, same
symbol (bullseye) as in the U.S. but supposedly they are not connected, at least
not by ownership. It really wasn’t as
nice as our Target back home but we may go back tomorrow to pick up a few
things.
We next went
to Coles (no not Kohl’s like back home).
It’s mostly a grocery store, but they did have clothes and a little of a
lot of other things. We picked up some things
there including a carton of diet coke to keep in our room fridge. Tomorrow we’ll be spending more time in
Fremantle so we may pick up more supplies then.
Tired and
hot we made our way back to the ship. The
new passengers were buzzing around, wondering where to go…newbies! At ten minutes to six the Captain came on the
speaker and said we had to turn the ship around (what?) and they were going to
do it at six o’clock and it will take about an hour. Fred and I went to the balcony to watch
people scurry from the terminal building to get on the ship before the gangway
was taken up. I can only imagine what
folks on shore may have thought as they saw the ship cast off lines and leave
the dock. There was no warning of this
at all. The ship is now back in place
but now our balcony faces the container facility and not the town.
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