Thursday, January 13, 2005
Ace of Clubs
Well, a lot's happened in the lasty week since I updated this!
After the cross-border shenanigans of last Friday, Saturday was more relaxed - we went to the Singapore Zoo, where it pissed it down for about 4 hours solid. Still, it was a very good zoo - they've got a significant percentage of all the white tigers still in existence (3 to be precise!), and many other endangered (and cute!) species.
Sunday was a non-day really - 4.5 hour flight from Singapore to Perth, arriving early evening, so there wasn't a great deal open in the city to see. Still, hotel's pretty good - I've got 2 (!) balconies, one overlooking the WACA (Bertie and GD, race for which of you gets that one first) and the Swan River, and the other of the main road outside the hotel.
Monday was my orientation day, so I did my usual of walking backwards and forwards around town taking random turnings till I had a proper picture in my head of where everything was. Then I went to the Botanical Gardens, which has a really good bush walk, considering it's in the city centre, and lots of great views. Steep hill to climb in the bright sunshine though! Got a bit burnt... Also went to the Western Australian Museum, and the Museum of Western Australian Art, both of which passed the time. Then I bought some sunscreen, and quite a bit of snack food, which turned out lucky, because...
Tuesday and Wednesday, the fun part came to an abrupt halt, which is annoying, as I really like Perth, and would have liked a lot more time here. I got my regular-as-clockwork bi-monthly (do I mean bi-monthly? Once every 2 months, anyway) cold, only this time with added bonuses of horrible hacking cough, voice loss and lots of shivers. Pretty much what many of you might remember laughing at me for, about a year ago! I didn't actually leave the hotel room on Tuesday, and only ventured out on Wednesday afternoon to go book my tour for today, in the hopes that I'd be up to it.
Which luckily I was. Very busy day today. It was a guided coach tour, and we went all over. First to a nature reserve, where we got to stroke koalas and feed kangaroos (Colm, remain calm...). Then to Lancelin, where we got to go sandboarding, which is pretty much the same as snowboarding, only with the snow replaced by sand, you go much slower, and there are no handy lifts to drag you up the 50m slope, so you have to climb upo yourself and are knackered by the time you get there. Then finally on to the Pinnacles, which are a weird Martian-like landscape of limestone pillars in the middle of an extremely windy desert. (Found out that Perth is the 3rd windiest city in the world - practice for Big Iain's quiz - where are cities 1 and 2? Answers on a postcard...)
The tour guide was really good, very informative and friendly, except she did make a few howlers in her commentary, e.g. of the town where we had lunch... "Cervantes is named after an American shiop that went down off the coast by the town in the 1840s. Where the ship got its name from, I don't know - I've always thought it sounded French, so maybe it's something to do with the Statue of Liberty", dating American independence in 1866, and telling us that she could only think of one building in the Perth area which was built before 1850 while parked opposite a sign advertising the special sale of a listed building circa 1841. And I topped it all off with sushi for tea, in the restaurant down the road. Buzz seems very expensive right about now...
Off to Fremantle tomorrow - the port on the coast near Perth. Looking forward to my first coffee of the year on their "cappucino strip" - I somehow accidentally ended up doing what Lint did deliberately last year! Then on to Adelaide on Saturday, but not before I've had an Asian breakfast of chicken rice porridge with shallots and chillies from the cafe nearby.
After the cross-border shenanigans of last Friday, Saturday was more relaxed - we went to the Singapore Zoo, where it pissed it down for about 4 hours solid. Still, it was a very good zoo - they've got a significant percentage of all the white tigers still in existence (3 to be precise!), and many other endangered (and cute!) species.
Sunday was a non-day really - 4.5 hour flight from Singapore to Perth, arriving early evening, so there wasn't a great deal open in the city to see. Still, hotel's pretty good - I've got 2 (!) balconies, one overlooking the WACA (Bertie and GD, race for which of you gets that one first) and the Swan River, and the other of the main road outside the hotel.
Monday was my orientation day, so I did my usual of walking backwards and forwards around town taking random turnings till I had a proper picture in my head of where everything was. Then I went to the Botanical Gardens, which has a really good bush walk, considering it's in the city centre, and lots of great views. Steep hill to climb in the bright sunshine though! Got a bit burnt... Also went to the Western Australian Museum, and the Museum of Western Australian Art, both of which passed the time. Then I bought some sunscreen, and quite a bit of snack food, which turned out lucky, because...
Tuesday and Wednesday, the fun part came to an abrupt halt, which is annoying, as I really like Perth, and would have liked a lot more time here. I got my regular-as-clockwork bi-monthly (do I mean bi-monthly? Once every 2 months, anyway) cold, only this time with added bonuses of horrible hacking cough, voice loss and lots of shivers. Pretty much what many of you might remember laughing at me for, about a year ago! I didn't actually leave the hotel room on Tuesday, and only ventured out on Wednesday afternoon to go book my tour for today, in the hopes that I'd be up to it.
Which luckily I was. Very busy day today. It was a guided coach tour, and we went all over. First to a nature reserve, where we got to stroke koalas and feed kangaroos (Colm, remain calm...). Then to Lancelin, where we got to go sandboarding, which is pretty much the same as snowboarding, only with the snow replaced by sand, you go much slower, and there are no handy lifts to drag you up the 50m slope, so you have to climb upo yourself and are knackered by the time you get there. Then finally on to the Pinnacles, which are a weird Martian-like landscape of limestone pillars in the middle of an extremely windy desert. (Found out that Perth is the 3rd windiest city in the world - practice for Big Iain's quiz - where are cities 1 and 2? Answers on a postcard...)
The tour guide was really good, very informative and friendly, except she did make a few howlers in her commentary, e.g. of the town where we had lunch... "Cervantes is named after an American shiop that went down off the coast by the town in the 1840s. Where the ship got its name from, I don't know - I've always thought it sounded French, so maybe it's something to do with the Statue of Liberty", dating American independence in 1866, and telling us that she could only think of one building in the Perth area which was built before 1850 while parked opposite a sign advertising the special sale of a listed building circa 1841. And I topped it all off with sushi for tea, in the restaurant down the road. Buzz seems very expensive right about now...
Off to Fremantle tomorrow - the port on the coast near Perth. Looking forward to my first coffee of the year on their "cappucino strip" - I somehow accidentally ended up doing what Lint did deliberately last year! Then on to Adelaide on Saturday, but not before I've had an Asian breakfast of chicken rice porridge with shallots and chillies from the cafe nearby.
posted by Chip : 13:47
2 comments
Comments:
WACA - isn't that the western australia christian assocation. But would have thought the massive neon cross wouldnt be that nice. Its either that or some other C which some aussies are almost religious about.
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