Gerald was invited to the University of Western Australia to give some
talks and work with a couple of physicists there. Elyse went
along mostly because we have good friends out there. While Gerald
was working, Elyse played tourist and walked and took a tram ride
around town. Perth is a beautiful city. It is right on the
coast, but also has the Swan River running through it, so there are
beautiful water views everywhere one looks. There was a fantastic
nature photography exhibit on at the Museum and lots of interesting
buildings.
One of the highlights of the city is Kings (they don't include an
apostrophe!) Park, a 1000 acre park (even larger than Central Park)
that has about 40 miles of walking/biking trails and a fantastic
botanic garden area. Elyse spent both afternoons wandering around
enjoying the flowers, birds and views of the city. The park also
includes various war memorials and a memorial to the Bali bombing
victims. One of the most moving memorials is the 1300+ trees that line
the main street, each with a plaque with information on each soldier
who died (example below) in WWI and WWII. About 10,000 from
Western Australia died in those wars.
We spent the weekend visiting with
friends who now live in Perth. Perth is "booming" right now due
to mining and oil exploration. There are houses and other
buildings going up everywhere! We can understand why people would
want to live there; it's beautiful. Hopefully it won't get
over-developed. On Saturday we spent the day at Mandurah, a city
about 50 miles south of Perth that is built (and being built) along
canals. Stunning (and very expensive looking) homes with great views
and nice beaches. On Sunday, we walked along a sandbar that goes
about 3/4 of the way across (into)
the river. At high tide some of the sand is submerged in water,
but while we walked, it was easy going with beautiful views (lots of
sailboats out that day). Note the black swans, native to Western Australia. We took some other coastal walks (there
are many of them in Perth) and enjoyed catching up with each other.
Sunday night we went to visit a family friend of the Dunnes; they
live in a great old bungalow with 12 foot high ceilings! They took
us into East Perth for dinner and this time we got a night view of
downtown over the river. Beautiful. A wonderful weekend
away.
