Kings Around Oz: Perth and Fremantle

Our trip to the ‘big smoke’ saw us catch up with family and bunk in with them so we were definitely able to get out of the wind! We had a lot of fun in Fremantle with so much to see and do. From walks along beaches, rivers and the waterfront to looking through museums and historic sites we were on the go most days.

We went to the Shipwreck Museum and we were all in awe of the Batavia wreck that sunk in 1629 and spent 343 years under the water. They have since found the wreck and brought parts of it to the surface and put it through a special process so that it could dry out and be preserved. On the Batavia there were thousands of bricks and a stone archway that has also been brought to the surface and is on display. The replica archway is in Fremantle but the actual stone archway is on display at the Geraldton Museum. There was so much information about ships wrecks and the artifacts found on them. It was amazing to see what they have found on these wrecks and how they have pieced together stories of survival or tragedy. We also explored the Maritime Museum and learnt a lot about the history of boats, transport, sporting achievements and even some sea creatures. Again we were lost for hours in here taking in all the information. We enjoyed the Fremantle Markets and Glen and Laura decided that steamed pork buns and boa buns are their new favourite food! We all enjoyed walking around looking at all the different art, craft and food stalls that were there. We soon learnt that Fremantle is a great place for food, drinks and eating out with so many cafes and restaurants….and they all smelled delicious. One night we went out for dinner at Sunshine Harvester Works which is a big food hall that has options to please every member of the family! It was a very delicious night out!

Another activity that filled our time in Perth was a trip to the Zoo. Emmalisa especially loved looking at all the animals, but we all agreed our favourite was the elephant enclosure. We saw the male elephant interacting with his keeper and putting hoops out over traffic cones and then packing them all away and giving them back to the keeper. The giraffes and the rhino was another highlight and we enjoyed watching them for a while.

We spent the day in Perth City as well just looking at all the shops and being amazed by the window washers hanging from the sky scrapers! We did the Willie Creek Harvest Your Own Pearl Tour but we were very disappointed to find that we had no pearl in our shell. So we all left that quite deflated. So on we went to the Perth Mint. This was a great tour where the golden rule is ‘don’t run’ because it looks very suspicious when there is so much gold around! We saw a $1,000,000 coin that was actual legal tender! However, the fact that it was made out of 1 tone of gold, the gold was worth more than the coin! We also all got on the scales to find out our ‘weight in gold’ and what we are worth in gold. As a family we are worth a bit over 20 million dollars! We also went into Perth one night for the Christmas festivities and the Drone Show. We had fun soaking up the atmosphere of street performers, hula hoop workshops and a roaming brass band. The drone show started off amazing and was spectacular to see, but as the show went on it was clear something went wrong as the drones just kept dropping out of the sky. They lost about 50 drones into the Swan River. Even though the show didn’t go to plan we still really enjoyed it.

Our most exciting and adventurous thing we did while in Fremantle was go to Adventure World. This is a big park with water slides and rides, a grand prix track, roller coasters and other scary rides. We had so much fun here. We were all brave enough to go on the Kraken which saw the drop vertically down a water slide and then get thrown from one side of the funnel to the other! We were all very scared on this ride but had the biggest adrenalin rush when we got off! We loved going down all the waterslides on tubes and mats and once again Laura faced her fears and went down the waterslides (mostly with her eyes closed!) The grand finale of the day was when we all went on our first roller coaster ride! We screamed, laughed cheered and sat in stunned silence as we went around the course! We were all glad we did it but some of us were not so sure we would go on a roller coaster again!

We loved our time in the ‘city’ as it was very different to what we have seen and done so far on this trip. We are now going to head off and explore the South West of Western Australia!