We started the morning with breakfast in the hotel restaurant, plenty of choice and great service, and pondered our options for the day. Finally deciding on a bus trip on the Perth Explorer, one of those hop on, hop off buses which are great to give an overview of a new city. And we don’t mind being “older” when we can get a senior discount, every dollar helps. A recorded commentary kept us looking left and right as we travelled along, telling us facts, figures and stories from the past.
The Perth Explorer
The city is extremely proud of it’s tallest building, the commentary said. Completed in 1992, Central Park is the tallest office tower in Perth at 51 stories high.
Central Park
The tour took us past several sports stadiums, including the newly completed Optus Stadium. Aussies really enjoy their sport.
For those who like to gamble, they could have departed the bus at Crown Perth, a huge complex including a Casino. We drove over the causeway crossing the Swan River, and other stops on the tour were at high end shopping malls, and at the other end of the scale, the Watertown Discount Shop, the Perth Mint, and the Cultural Centre. The highlight of the tour, we felt was driving through the wonderful Kings Park and Botanic Gardens. The driveway into the 404 hectare park was lined with lemon scented gum trees, making a wonderful first impression. There were so many quite different areas, it would take ages to explore it all.
Views of Kings Park
Leaving Kings Park to drive back to the city, we caught a glimpse of Perth across the Swan River. Which, as it turns out, is not fresh water but a salt water river.
Who would have known that a little piece of Tudor England was alive and well in the middle of Perth? This was London Court. Built in 1937 as a combination of residential and commercial premises for wealthy gold miner and financier Claude de Bernales, Perth’s London Court is designed using the architectural features present in Elizabethan times. The only walk in the world outside Britain that has captured a setting and atmosphere so similar to that of Tudor England, London Court is a retail arcade in the heart of the Perth Central Business District.
London Court, in down town Perth
This Tudor fronted street was crammed with tourists and shoppers, all gazing at the shop fronts with awe and snapping photos. Banners with the faces of notable people of the time were hung, the likes of Queen Elizabeth 1st, Mary Queen of Scots, William Shakespeare, and Henry 8th. Certainly an amazing place to explore.
As we made our way back to the hotel, we came across a plaque in the footpath marking the position of Point Zero. Which is the point adopted in 1925 as the origin of all road distances in Western Australia.
Point Zero
And we all know that kangaroos are an Aussie icon. There was a mob of bronze kangaroos looking lively in the centre of the city. These life size bronze kangaroos are a realistic representation of how kangaroos might behave in the bush. The Western Grey kangaroos were created by artists Charlie Smith and Joan Walsh-Smith in 1998.
Then in the early evening we had a meal at the “Public House” just across the road from our hotel. The meal was very nice indeed, Tasmanian salmon her her, and herb crusted pork cutlet for him. The couple at the next table were also from New Zealand and were staying in Perth to do the Indian Pacific train trip, just like us, what a coincidence. Perhaps we will be in the same carriage when our trip departs on Sunday.
Dining at the Public House
We were on the go all day, plenty to see and do, and all of it new to us as this is our first visit to Perth. Wonder where we will be off to tomorrow?
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