Perth WA and surronds

Perth Western Australia and Rottnest Island: April 12-14, 2008
We arrived in Perth mid-Saturday morning. We got to the hotel, unpacked and settled in, and then we set out to explore the city. Wow has it ever grown, guess 30+ years will do that to just about anywhere. We walked along the Swan River, beautiful salt water river that flows through the middle of Perth. We stopped in at an amazing exhibition of Da Vinci’s inventions and concepts. What an incredible mind he had. From there we explored the Swan Bells, a bell carillon with original bells from the St Martin’s in the Field Church in London where they rang in the 1200’s. We walked a few more blocks and found the downtown area, a real mixture of old and new buildings. Western Australia has made it a priority to preserve their historic buildings. An amazing thing about Perth is that it has 3 different bus lines that run around the city about every 30 minutes for “FREE”. We were able to get around and see quite a bit, and even get ourselves back to our hotel.
Sunday morning we went on a nice tour of Perth and Fremantle. Fremantle was the first western port and a large penal colony of England. Now, it is a very rich area with most of the money coming from mining. New homes start at $800,000. China is buying most of the ore at very high prices. Next we visited the Western Australia Maritime Museum with great displays; our favorite was the Australia II, the yacht that won the America’s Cup for Australia in 1983. It was suspended from the ceiling, and you could walk around it on 3 different levels. We ended our tour with a nice sail up the Swan River in a ferry boat where we saw many water-front mansions worth a few million up to 80 million. There was an amazing amount of pleasure craft out on the water, from kayaks, sailboats and cabin cruisers to large yachts. Perth is said to be the largest, most remote city in the world. It is also becoming one of the richest.
Monday morning we sailed over to Rottnest Island, we had gone there back in 1973. It still is beautiful, but very crowded, today started the school holidays for Western Australia. We made our way to Green Island Bay and managed to snorkel around a bit and see some fish, in the beautiful clear water of the Indian Ocean. The weather could not have been more perfect. Tomorrow we get back to our touring of the West Coast in a new motor home. We are ready to hit the road again.