Wednesday – March 26, 2025
Fremantle-Perth, Australia
Bees were out in force at the Western Australian Botanic Garden. Today’s featured photo shows several of them interested in one of the flowering eucalyptus varieties.
The excursion we took today was one that came with the cruise package – what would be called a “city tour”. The city tours we had taken to this point were acceptable but when this one began we didn’t expect much. Normally the guide provides narrative as you move from place to place. In this case both the guide and the driver were talking – the driver more than the guide. Our tour was also later in the day when traffic was becoming a problem so we didn’t even stop at some of the scheduled places because we were told there “wasn’t time”. One such place was Fremantle Prison. We just drove past with little or no explanation of its significance.
We did stop to take photos (5 minutes) at some memorial – no explanation – just take photos and get back in get bus. Next we went to a beach named Cottesloe Beach. Again, don’t know the significance or why we stopped there. We later found that there was a shark net in place in the swimming area but that a shark had jumped the net and injured someone a couple weeks before we arrived. Don’t think I would want to go swimming there.
We drove into Perth and our driver thought we would like to see home of rich people – WRONG! He pointed out the estate of Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart. We didn’t take this excursion to look at big fancy homes.
Eventually we made our way to Kings Park in Perth. The guide and driver placed emphasis on a memorial to terrorist bombing in Bali without reminding us of the background (when, why, how many killed/injured). The park also holds the Western Australian Botanic Garden which we chose to walk through during the short time we had there. We found many varieties of eucalyptus in bloom and lots of bees making themselves useful collecting pollen.
After boarding the bus we were driven past the Perth soccer stadium and a bridge named after white swan and black swan. Didn’t get to view either from other than the bus windows.
This was definitely not our favorite excursion. We returned late enough that we missed our dinner seating so made our way to the buffet. Following that we went to the main pool area where we listened to a drum and bagpipe show put on by the Perth Highland Pipe Band. There are several videos of their numbers. I would say this was the highlight of today.