Perth

03 - 06 December 2022

We got to Perth pretty early on Saturday and had time to go to the Perth zoo. It’s a nice zoo, not very big. You could do it easily in 3 hours, we only had two. The Koala above shifted trees to pose for Anthony.

This guy had a job to do, and was working with his handler. The object was to stretch that bundle of leaves across a set of poles, so the elephant could eat it later. They were fun to watch.

A black swan on the Swan River. The black swan is the symbol of Western Australia.

The next morning (Sunday) we went on a Swan River Wine Cruise, inland from Perth. The cruise past the famously expensive Matarup Bridge (AU$91M, a lot for a pedestrian bridge no matter how cool it looks) and the impressive Optus Stadium. We had an excellent lunch at the Sandalford winery. They produce an exceptional white Tawny (formerly known as Port). Sandalford is famous for their outdoor music amphitheater which holds 16K people where they host national and international acts.

Monday was our last day in Western Australia, we spend the morning at Kings Park, where we started. This time we took a leisurely walk through the park. Walking through the Botanical Gardens and climbing up the DNA Helix, one of the highest points in Perth.

In 2008, the Western Australians moved a 750 year old Boab Tree 3200 km from Telegraph Creek in the northern part of Western Australian and planted it in Kings Park. If Sagan and I had done it, we would have dug up a lot more of the roots.

One of the other passengers on the Swan River tour told us about a speakeasy called Sneaky Tony’s located in an alley across the street from our hotel. There are no signs, and you have to know the daily password posted on FaceBook. Julie was a great sport and went with Anthony to check it out.