Menory Lane - The Wide Brown Land 2

Less pimple, more beauty-spot. (...part one was on Sunday - go back if you didn't read it!)

The Swan Valley is an enormous, flood-plain district around the Swan River.  Several things struck the Sceptical Tourist Fishy (STF) as we made the hour-long journey from Perth Airport to the property where we would stay the next three days.

First - the sky.  It was HIGH.  Apparently being on the hind end of the planet causes the atmosphere to expand.  Or it seemed that way!  This meant also that the air was amazingly clear, breathing-ways. 

photo from Google Images

Then there were the gum trees.  An immediate love affair sprung up between STF and the eucalypt family.

It wasn't long before kookaburras were spotted.  For Heaven's sake - you mean they are REAL???  Not just some story made up for kids in distant lands?  They actually laugh too!

The fourth factor on that arrival day was to discover these hosts had a Western Grey kangaroo in their back yard.  An enormous paddock of a yard, it should be said, but the kanga preferred to stay by the house.  It had a penchant for removing hair pins from the ladies' hair, or attempting to unbuckle watches.  It also wanted it's fair share of the salad from the barbecue.

Next day, Aitch and myself were pointed to the double-decker trains and we rode into the pretty city of Perth.  Laid out in squares.  Wide, pristine streets.  Aitch and I are both history buffs and have an interest in architecture so there was plenty to see and do.  To be very honest, I don't have the best recall of the details of that particular occasion, though I do think we visited the old gaol and similar places.  Certainly the art gallery would have been included. I do know we got to the Ansett Buses office to confirm our tickets (booked from UK) for departure to Adelaide in a couple of days.  All was dandy, but for the first time we met the laconic Aussie temperament that seems always to be 'taking the mickey' and hit a surprising cultural wall as the language proved to be not quite English after all!

One thing for certain, our Chinese hats proved worth the buying.  That OZ sun was fierce.  This brought a good bit of attention that we may have preferred not to have, but we were determined these were not merely ornamental oriental items.  There was a practicality to be demonstrated.

On our final evening in Perth, our hosts booked us in for a seafood platter meal at the King's Park Restaurant. 

photo from Google Images.... view of Perth from Kings Park.

Here was another factor in the transformation of the STF to OZ-devotee.  Never a great meat eater, fish was quite acceptable - but until you have experienced the Australian seafood extravaganza, you just have never lived.  For the first time in my life I ate lobster, mussels, oysters and crab.  In our family this would have been seen as decadent beyond words, but in The Wide Brown Land which has a fringe of green and bathes in blue, seafood is pretty much a staple.  Admittedly not all at once like this.  But it was an occasion and one never to be forgotten, as we sat in an historic building in an equally historic park, gazing down on the inland lake where the famous black swans gathered as the gigantic red orb of Sol sank into the Indian Ocean.

Next morning was a flurry of suitcases and Chinese sunhats as we boarded the 'Nullarbor Road Plane'.  By this time, the STF was completely, totally in love with the 'pimple' and couldn't wait to see more.

Can you?  Only till tomorrow!