Tuesday and Wednesday, 12 and 13 February 2013 – Fremantle/Perth, Western Australia
Today is Valentine's Day, and we're at sea along the western coast of Australia in the smooth, warm, and in all ways very pleasant Indian Ocean. I've just posted my "intermission" piece and thought I'd do a quick report on the last few days, a rare but appreciated overnight stay in Fremantle.
I spent a week in Perth in 1992 after taking the famed Indian-Pacific train from Sydney. Perth is the most isolated capital city (state or national capital, that is) in the world. The closest nearby capital city is Jakarta, Indonesia which isn't near at all. Perth is a modern laid back (!) city—with very clement San Diego type weather, beautiful wilderness within a short drive, spectacular beaches, and is perhaps Australia's biggest secret in plain view. Although the World Cup sailing races of the early 1980s put Perth's port town of Fremantle on the tourist map, Perth with all the fine attributes stated above is still very very isolated.
We arrived in Fremantle in the early afternoon the day before yesterday 24 hours after leaving the pleasant but comatose holiday/retirement town of Albany. The forecast was for over 100 degrees on shore. We found ourselves docked by the Fremantle railway station and immediately headed out with the intension of hot footing (!!!!) it to Perth, a 40 minute commuter train ride. But we were stopped by a middle aged local woman as we crossed the parking lot behind the dock who asked if she could ask us a few questions regarding Silver Whisper as she was booked on the ship for the October "foliage" itinerary from NYC to Montreal and had never been on a cruise ship. After answering the THREE QUESTIONS regarding, 1) Being bored on sea days (not spelled "board" as per the typo in my earlier post. Sorry), 2) getting sea sick, and 3) dressing UP, she demanded that she give us a tour of Fremantle. I suppose Barbara will report at length on this experience. So all I'll say here is that we had a great time with a nice local school teacher who had spent her whole life in did I mention a very isolated place. We got to see some of the fantastic white sand beaches so loved by the folks in Perth and some of the lovely residential neighborhoods. We even got to see what Western Australian mailmen look like—which seems to be a cross between a construction worker and a biker. This nice lady's tour made our day as well as gave her something to talk about for I suspect a long time to come.
We finally got our train ride into 100 degree Perth (they are having a record string of over 100 degree weather) and took one of the three free tourist buses of Transperth's extensive bus and rail network to get a re-orientation of this remarkably unchanged city—a trait here in Australia as it was in New Zealand. The bus was air conditioned, of course, but we then walked across the viaduct as I did daily 20-something years ago to the Northbridge section for a drink or maybe dinner. Also mostly unchanged from those years ago, we stopped for a local beer and then decided to take the train back to Fremantle for a shower and a late dinner on board.
We repeated the train ride into town yesterday but without a school teacher to delay and amuse us and found the hotel where I had stayed all those years ago. It as Perth was not changed in any way, right down to the adjacent "English Pub" where I was threatened by four 20ish young men for "working while at a pub." Another story for or probably from another time. As the temperature was climbing back into the low 100s in Perth, we walked down to the cooler Swan River shoreline and found that the scenic one hour ferry back to Fremantle was about to leave. My first experience attempting to buy a ticket for the ferry was turned down by one ferry operator who while friendly enough advised us that she was "Us" but "They" were running the ferry that day and pointed to an adjacent kiosk. Perhaps I should have noticed that this first attendant had a flying pig over her head, indicating the low probability of getting a ride to Fremantle on her boat.
Upon returning to somewhat cooler Fremantle, we took both Transperth Fremantle free tourist bus routes around the now quite a bit more touristy Fremantle and then visited the Maritime Museum, one of the best in the world. Barbara took a picture of an operating submarine periscope which oddly enough had its crosshairs aimed at Silver Whisper. (It took me a while to figure out how to do that before she stepped over to the submarine display.) In front of the museum was a "training ship" where a bunch of young people were hanging from the yardarm. We then returned quite exhausted to Silver Whisper for a rest in our suite where I observed the view of the maritime museum on our ship's video system.
We sailed out at 5:20 pm after waiting for a tardy guest (see earlier blog entry) and an even more delayed ship's tour to return. We are now on a three day sail essentially due north to Bali where we will arrive on Sunday and celebrate our anniversary, 16 February in the Western Hemisphere on that day. Then on to Borneo and the Philippines.
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