Tuesday, February 18, 2020

February 18th - Perth, Australia

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.

So, tomorrow we’re off to explore Fremantle

No comments:

Post a Comment