A day around Perth, not doing much: picking up mail, shopping in book stores, and visiting the disappointing Kings Park Botanic Gardens.
We woke up to those city sounds of the pedestrian crosswalks chirping and clacking... a change from the bush wakeup call of the kookaburras and parrots!
The apartment hotel we're in--Qwest West End Perth--is pretty nice. We're in a one bedroom apartment, with parking for the (tall) LandCruiser, all for $100 a night. It's close in to the center of Perth, maybe a five minutes walk. We did that first today, heading to the post office to pick up our redirected mail from our Sydney post office box. Nothing shocking, though Australia Post finally forwarded all the mail that's been collecting in our box since early April. They didn't do that last time we had our mail redirected.
Then we did a bit of book shopping at the ABC shop, and Dymocks, taking full advantage of their frequent buyer cards. The Dymocks card in particular is like playing the lottery, except that you always win! After buying $200 of books, we got vouchers for $19 off our next purchase, so Chris went back, bought another $100 of books, and got a $17 voucher for that purchase.
We hauled the loot back to the apartment and packed a box of books to ship back to the US. Rates have gone up, 10 kilos of printed matter to the US now costs $49. Still, that's a bargain... now that we've discovered the secret 'print post international' rates specifically for books and magazines, we're sending back box after box. In US dollar terms, it ends up being about 60 cents per book to ship it back. That's nothing.
We then drove over to Kings Park, which sits southwest of Perth's CBD. Surprisingly, it's on top of a high cliff, overlooking the very wide Swan River. Perth is not quite as flat as we thought; it's vaguely reminiscent of the rolling hills around Lake Washington on the east side of Seattle. While I'm on comparisons, Perth does not feel like San Diego. Right now, it's too cool. Even in winter, San Diego warms up nicely. Perth hasn't been for us; it's been about 18C/64F for most of the day, and very cool at night. Perth also feels much more green and lush than San Diego, which even in winter feels a bit like 'desert meets the sea'. Perth does get about four times the amount of rain than San Diego, I've learned, about the same amount as Seattle and Chicago, and also gets rain in the summer
now and then, unlike San Diego.
Anyway, Kings Park was very disappointing. I've heard about how it's The Place for seeing Western Australian plants. Well... maybe. But the Botanic Gardens were less than thrilling. Plants were mislabeled, often blatantly--plants labeled as acacias that were clearly banksias with their cut leaves, acacias labeled as proteas, grevilleas labeled as eucalypts. It's not the work of plant-label vandals, either: many of the labels were clearly overgrown by the plants.
In addition, big sections of the park were closed in preparation for the Wildflower festival being held at the end of the month. Huh? It takes three weeks? I couldn't see the banksia gardens, or the kangaroo paws. A large chunk of the garden was closed off; you could peer over the wire fence but couldn't go in. Very very irritating, especially when I saw a good dozen gardeners making little flower boxes. Could Kings Park please put those gardeners on sign duty and correct all the misplaced signs?
Perhaps the most disappointing thing were that there was very few interpretive signs. I saw two, both forgettable. I didn't see any on the banksias (maybe they were behind the closed barriers). I didn't see any on how the Western Australia plants evolved into forms quite different than their eastern counterparts. There wasn't any even on Western Australia's floral emblem, the red and green kangaroo paw. Combined with the very sparse gift shop--with no books or seeds for purchase, just China-made koala oven mitts and wildflower painted bud vases--it just was cheap and nasty.
We came back to the room... and planned our stay here in WA. I think we'll do some hiking, then scoot out of the state in early October.
Weird Wildlife Sighting
Wildflowers in the park, somewhat
Where we stayed
- Quest West End Apartment Hotel, Perth
- $103 - one bedroom apartment
- Fantastic value! Great bathttub.