Following my journey by train from Sydney, I stopped first in Perth for a couple of nights of luxury at the Rydges before heading just down the line to Fremantle for a week in Rosie O'Grady's Irish Pub.
After chatting with John, one of my fellow India Pacific passengers I found sitting on a bench one morning in the centre of the city I spent the rest of the day riding the busses around Perth with Jim, another of my train buddies. We found the Botanic Gardens on one route, alighted and walked round it. On our return to the bus I looked up the location of the nearest Guzman Y Gomez and we ate Burritos and drank beer!
I much preferred Freo as the number of crackheads wandering the streets hassling people was a lot lower. Also, I found a few great little cafes and a couple of attractions to visit - the Fremantle Shipwreck Museum, the Roundhouse and Wailers Tunnel, The Little Creatures Brewery along with a short stretch of beach where a Pied Cormorant was busy diving for fish.
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| Singing Honeyeater |
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| Another Singing Honeyeater |
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| Magpie Larks |
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| Diving Pied Cormorant |
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| Pied Cormorant |
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| Pied Cormorant |
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| White Faced Tern |
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| VOC ship Batavia #1 |
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| VOC ship Batavia #2 |
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| VOC ship Batavia #3 |
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| As I ate my lunch this beast pulled up. |
With an online introduction from Mikey Joyce I met up with Rick Clarke, a friend of my Essex skateboarding friends who now lives out in WA.
Rick took me to Freo's park and we met up with some local rollers. I skated Rick's board all evening and we agreed to keep in touch and meet for another skate before I left. This time with my own perfectly proportioned borrowed board, we arrived in the rain at a small metal mini ramp which conveniently, was covered with a tin roof. One of Rick's mates turned up with a generator and a couple of floodlights. We skated late into the night with heavy rain dropping around us.
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| Richard Clarke - f/s nose pick |
Rick offered to give me a lift to the airport on the day I flew to Adelaide and after handing over a bag of my clothes, freshly washed and dried. He'd offered to do my washing earlier in the week, which was a most welcome offer as my small bag of clean clothes was getting very empty! We took a short drive over to Momentum Skateshop in Clairmont so I could pick up a shop shirt and some stickers from yet another friendly independent Australian skateshop. One of the things I've tried to do at every stop on my trip. We drove on and stopped to see if we could see any dolphins in the river. I also sat on an ant nest which I failed to notice erupting from the frame of a park bench as I sat down to change my lens. This led to a number of painful bites and a silly dance. No dolphins. I did finally manage to get some close up shots of Galahs. Silly twats.
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| Australasian Darter |
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| A Grey Fantail, fanning it's tail |
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| Galah |
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| Galahs #1 |
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| Galahs #2 |
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| Galahs #3 |
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