Perth

Daniel at Fremantle with a statue of a fisherman

Section of the Batavia which was recovered

Long day walking around, getting the train to Juls' house

Next day (Thursday) we had to even set an alarm to get up early enough to take the car to the service centre, but at least we got a lift from them into town which made it easier. We went first to Scitech, the science centre which is sort of like Questacon and really pretty cool. After a couple of hours there we then got to train to Fremantle as Nick had fond memories of staying there for work and visiting the Little Creatures Brewery. So after a bit of walking around we found the brewery and had a fantastic lunch sitting outside in the sun with a nice locally brewed beer and homemade apple juice to go with it. It is a really beautiful town, Fremantle, with the sun sparkling off the sea and a nice café to sit in. Then it was time to get a bit of kulcha, so we visited part of the maritime museum, a section on shipwrecks which has an old part of the Batavia which was brought up from the ocean floor. Apparently the crew of the Batavia mutinied after it was wrecked and there was quite a bit of carnage and many lives lost before the captain prevailed. Interestingly, during the Batavia’s time the cannons shot quite small pellets at other ships which were aimed at tearing the sails and rigging of the other ship, but later ships carried cannons which were able to fire cannonballs able to actually fire holes in and destroy the other ship.

After Fremantle we got the train back to Cottesloe and were met by Jane’s friend Juls, who cooked us up a nice dinner at her place (we feel like we’ve been hosted very generously in Perth!), where the kids could again kick back and eat in front of the telly while we got to chat. Even more generously, Juls drove us home all the way to the caravan park, as it turned out that our car had to stay in overnight and get something fixed under warranty (our last chance before it runs out). It has meant another night in the caravan park but it’s kind of nice as it meant that today we could all lie in, do some loads of washing and hang it out to dry, the kids could catch up on their journals and I could catch up on the blog, then we’ll get the bus to pick up the car this afternoon before heading off tomorrow. Overall we’ve enjoyed Perth, seeing friends and the city in nice warmer weather, and it is a kind of a mental milestone for both Nick and I – I previously couldn’t even conceive of being in Perth as it seemed so far away, and Nick feels like after here we will really hit the Wild West! We’re excited anyway to head North, not only for the warmer weather but for the cool things we’re going to see.