September 2 - spring break trip

This morning I woke up at 7:30. I took a packed lunch of 2 sandwiches, some fruitcake, some raw veggies, and orange juice with me. Diane drove me to the Stirling train station, and from there I caught a train into the city of Perth. Since I like nature and parks and stuff, I walked from the train station, using my free tourist’s map, up to Kings Park, an approximately 1,000 acre park that consists of a mixture well manicured, landscaped lawns, flower beds, paved paths, a botanic garden, and lots of bushland.

At the top of the hill in Kings Park there was a great view of the city of Perth. Over several hours throughout my morning in the park, I managed to find several new, getting to photograph a few of them through my binoculars. I spent a fair amount of time walking along some of the trails, which included an elevated boardwalk through the forest, some paved trails, and some sandy trails through the bush. The bush was different than in Canberra and it was neat to see some of the different birds and plants.

One of the trees in the landscaped area of the park was called the Queen’s tree, and in front of it firmly planted in the ground was a plaque about how Queen Elizabeth herself planted that tree (in Kings Park, go figure) in 1954. I’m assuming that unless she used a bulldozer, it was a little tree when she planted it… but for a 50 year old tree, it was humongous. It literally would have taken 2 or 3 people to reach all the way around it. I’m not sure if they just gave it a bunch of Miracle Grow and it grew really fast after she planted it, or if they just decided to let the queen use a bulldozer and a crane to plant it. If it was miracle grow, they should try feeding that stuff to some forests out in the western U.S. so the Spotted Owl can just chill, and the logging industry can chop down huge trees like it likes to do, and everybody will be happy.

Other things I saw in Kings park included the “DNA tower”, that is, an observation tower on top of a hill that is designed to look like DNA. The DNA tower consisted of a double-stranded right-handed helix with several hydrogen bonds (little platforms) connecting the complimentary base pairs of the helices (the two staircases). From the top of the DNA tower you had a 360 degrees view of the surrounding parkland, so it was pretty cool even if you’re not a big fan of DNA.

After I had satisfactorily explored Kings Park, I sat down on the lawn where there was a good view of the city and ate my lunch. After lunch I walked back down into the city. In the city I found the landmark Swan Bells tower, a big, creatively-designed tower (to lure in tourists, no doubt) and one of the biggest instruments in the world (so the sign says). I took a few pictures so I could prove that I’ve been there, then caught one of the free CAT (Central Area Transit) buses that operates in the CBD of Perth. I took this bus to the Hay Street stop where I hopped off and proceeded to walk through the Hay Street Mall. The Hay Street Mall is a pedestrians-only street with tons of shops all along it. The next street over, it turns out, was another mall, but I didn’t bother doing any walk-through window shopping on that street -- I didn’t feel like buying anything anyways. So, I went to McDonald’s instead, got a cheap little strawberry sundae, and walked back to the train station.

From the Perth train station I got on the Clarkson line, got off at the Glendalough station, hopped on a city bus (using my train ticket to get on, yay), and hopped off at the end of the line, which happened to be (as planned) in the suburb of Scarborough. From here I walked a block to the beach, then proceeded to walk up the beach back to Trigg (the next suburb north, and where I am staying). The beach was a bit breezy but still beautiful and sunny, and I enjoyed walking barefoot for a good portion of my 45 minute walk up the beach. In some places there were small shells so thick on the beach that they covered the sand. In some spots I was able to literally bend down and pick up a whole handful of shells without picking up any sand. I found a few “cuttlebones” washed up on the beach too, and wished I could collect them and send them home for the parakeets and cockatiels to use for calcium. Cuttlebones usually run at least $1 each at pet stores. I found one that was a good 14 inches long too – you never see them that big in the pet shops. J I dropped my backpack off at Chris and Diane’s house then walked back to the beach for the sunset, which ended up being only “so-so” tonight. After that I went back, had supper, then watched TV for a bit, wrote what I did today down, then went to bed.

One of the shows that came on TV when I was watching was “Australia’s Funniest Home Videos”, a spin-off of the American America’s Funniest Home Videos. Regrettably I must inform you all that I was disappointed with the host (she wasn’t as funny as most America’s FV hosts), but I was even more disappointed with the videos on the show. While some were funny, it seemed that there were more videos compared to America’s FV where the people falling, crashing, or doing whatever, seemed like they probably ended up seriously injured after they pulled their stunts. This made some of these videos less funny – in the USA AFV most of the videos you can tell result in people that are just embarrassed and not seriously injured. The other thing that disappointed me was that some of the funniest videos on the show were clearly shot in the U.S.A. For example, here in Australia, Kelloggs’ “Rice Krispies” are sold as Kelloggs’ “Rice Bubbles”. On the counter in the background of one video there was a box of Kellogg’s rice krispies, clearly revealing where the video was originally from. Two of the funniest videos on the show, I noticed, also starred American wildlife – one involved a raccoon, and the other involved a black bear. The one with the bear showed the bear happily munching on something at the edge of a hedgerow when a black and white cat unexpectedly leaps out of the bushes a few feet away, and with the intent to “play”, runs toward the bear. The bear is startled by the cat and takes off, running away as fast as it can. I know my description wasn’t quite as funny as the original movie, but the moral of the story is, if Australia’s Funniest Home Videos is 50% American videos, then clearly, America’s got the funniest home videos.