February 20 – Fremantle/Perth, Australia

Today is the end of the second segment of our world cruise.  About 300 or so passengers are disembarking here and about another 300 or so are getting on.  We get to stay.  Yeah!

We docked in Fremantle.  Early afternoon we headed out on our tour with a five minute bus ride to the ferry terminal.  Turns out the ferry terminal is only a very few hundred yards from our ship.  Not sure why we couldn’t just walk the distance. 

We boarded the ferry for a one hour cruise into Perth on the Swan river.  Nice cruise, but not spectacular - okay to do once.

The sand bar was interesting:

We had very good views of the Perth skyline.

Black swans are original to western Australia and there were some statues of black swans in the park we passed on our way to our tour bus. 

The drive into Kings Park was particularly impressive with the road lined with beautiful trees.

Once inside the park we had great views of the bay and downtown Perth.

The park is also home of another ANZAC memorial

and the botanical gardens.

The drive back to Fremantle took us through some very exclusive neighborhoods with a short stop at one of the popular beaches.

We also had a short drive through Fremantle.  Fremantle didn’t go through a major building boom like Perth so many of the old Victorian buildings are still in existence. 

The port is obviously a major recipient of imports.  Just across from the ship was a huge lot full of new cars and trucks. 

Also in the area was a flour mill.

And someone had created a beautiful rainbow by painting cargo containers and stacking them in an arch (who knows how they managed to stack them like that).

The ship has several shops on board and Apropo, the clothing shop, has some purses with lots of bead and bling and they are some of the strangest imaginable.  Can't figure out where on earth one would carry them.