Perth - On the Tourist Trail

I have been so busy since the last post doing the general tourist thing and seeing most of the sights and attractions that Perth and Fremantle have to offer. Then forgetting most of what happened after 10 beers in the evening. First stop was Fremantle and these sights included the Fremantle prison, of which there are two. Firstly, the Roundhouse which is the oldest public building in the history of Western Australia and also where the original British convicts where housed when they were transported over. (pictures below)



And then the Fremantle Prison, which was still in use as recently as 1991. It too was built by the convicts themselves and it was quite weird seeing such a British influence on something so far away from the UK. Everywhere you looked you saw "Victoria Regina". There was also a display of aboriginal prisoner artwork and I broke the no photography rules just to bring you one of them (below). The original singer from AC/DC, Bon Scott also served time here! All in all pretty interesting but not a patch on the excitement of Alcatraz in San Francisco!







I also visited the Fremantle Arts Center museum which used to be the old mental asylum complete with original cell and padded walls. The museum also contains a full history on Fremantle and how the British founded it, overcame the aboriginal's and began transporting convicts over to be put to good use. I also visited the famous Fremantle Markets, chilled out with a long black (black coffee) at Gino's on the coffee strip (Gino bought the first coffee into Fremantle), had a lesson on how to play the didgeridoo (which isn't too hard... until you run out of breath) and also took what I thought was a plain old ferry ride from Perth City centre down the Swan River to Fremantle, but just as the blue rinse brigade boarded the vessel I realised it was actually a cruise aimed at the "older" tourist.




Perth city center isn't the greatest of worldwide city centers by any stretch of the imagination, but the Perth Mint with more gold on show than Mr T, its live gold pouring and the facility to discover your own weight in gold made it an interesting visit. My weight was $1.46 million, which by my expectations means I have lost a good few bucks in value since arriving. Interestingly, gold is also one of the few investments that actually increases in value when the stability of the economy is bleak. It was also cool to see the Sydney 2000 Olympic medals in real life, which were produced here. So it hasn't all been beer and surfing, I have been learning some stuff... see!

On Thursday 26th it was Australia's 218th birthday and on Australia day there are only two essential pieces of kit: a flag in one hand and and a beer in the other.




I have been to numerous pubs over the past fortnight and one piece of advice I would offer anyone coming to Perth is to avoid Northbridge in the evenings as it is a sh*t hole! Wall to wall cheesy clubs, stroppy bouncers and people giving attitude (although I can't complain as we got in everywhere without queuing and paying as the people I was with were connected. This guy Wazza who I met through Luke is the sort of mate everyone needs, he seems to know the whole of Perth which is awesome when you are out on the town at the weekend!)




On Friday evening (3rd Feb) we went to the Jack McCoy Billabong Surf Film Festival in Subiaco and saw the new Billabong flick called "Free As A Dog" about one of my favorite surfers Joel Parkinson. The best night out this week was on Saturday when we went to see the UK band, The Subways, who were over for the Big Day Out festival. They are getting really popular now back home but over here are relatively unknown so I got to see them in a venue the size of my living room. Got in for free too as I had won a competition earlier that week! They were absolutely rockin! The only major draw back was that I spent that evening (and the last 3 days) suffering from proper killer sunburn on my face from spending the 2 days previous down the beach in the water surfing. My checks and chin were so bad that I thought that I may have to go to a doctor the next day. As I sit and write this the lower half of my face is a large scab. After a bit of internet diagnosis it suggested I had between a 2nd and 3rd degree burn. Ouch!! I later found out that Western Australia particularly has some of the harshest and most extreme sun and UV rays on the planet (something which Buckinghamshire most definitely does not). Even using an SPF 30+ is classed as low here! I am genuinely worried that I may end up looking like Freddie Kruger for the rest of my life, which I am told by the others may be an improvement! So sympathetic are they that my new nickname is Tom-ato.

Apart from that I bizarrely spent last Monday (30th Jan) as an antique removal man. The last thing I was expecting coming to Oz was to be lifting a load of British antiques, and some of the (very few) small (and thus light) items wrapped in the Daily Star newspaper and Sainsbury's carrier bags! It was the last thing I was expecting to be doing and the hardest physical day of paid work in my life too... and all for 95 measly bucks! It turns out the guy who runs the shop regularly goes over to the UK to auctions and brings back 10 tonne containers with him in the process! Fortunately by the time the next one comes in I will be long gone...

I also wanted to see some Kangaroo's! So we went on a hunt at a golf course outside of Perth and to my amazement I couldn't believe how many we actually found. They are one of the funniest and weirdest animals you have ever seen. Even stranger when they are in the wild as opposed to a zoo.





I have also seen my first snake which I noticed right by my bare foot as I ate lunch near the beach on Saturday. I moved away pretty sharpish! It was brown (not good) and about 4 inches thick by 4 feet long, when I returned to the beach I was later told it was a Dugite which is "dangerously venomous". Even most of the Ozzies said they had never even been that close to a snake before, let alone a Dugite!

The general plan for the next week is to get over to Rottenest Island, before hiring a camper van and making it down south to Margret River in pursuit of some good waves. The weather has been an average of 35 degrees over the last few days and is damn hot, fortunately its a few degrees cooler at night.