As background, Perth is the most isolated city in the world. It is closer to Singapore and Jacarta than it is to the capital of Australia, Canberra. With its mediterranean climate of warm summer and cool winters, it has the climate that California thinks it has. It is the record holder for sunniest days and most persistent afternoon sea breezes.
What a perfect place to visit! However, both Richard, our destination lecturer, and the Adventures Ashore Port Guide published by Princess Cruises, mainly covered Fremantle, the port town where we docked. This should have been a clue. But it did not seem to enter my consciousness. It would have been bad enough if I had gone off on my own to explore Perth but I had to drag Ken and four other people with me, Ginger, Joe, Verena and Faye. Okay, they came willingly because they thought that Perth must have some spectacular sites to offer.
We all got off the ship as soon as we could at 7:30 a.m. and headed for the train station, a short walk away. On the train, a young woman asked me, "Is this the train to Perth?" I thought she was really in trouble if she thought I could answer her question but I told her this was the train the ticket seller had told us to board. It turned out that she lived and worked in Perth but was house sitting in Fremantle. Here was a living, breathing wealth of information about the city that I had always wanted to visit!
So I asked her what she did when friends came to visit her. Her answer was, "We get out of Perth." That was clue no. 2. She then told me that she had moved to Perth seven years ago to be near her family and had lived in Melbourne, a city that both Ken and I fell in love with we visited Australia in 2006. So I asked how Perth compared with Melbourne. Her answer was, "You can't compare the two cities." That was clue no. 3. By that time, the train had arrived in Perth and I wished her a good day. If I had picked up on all those clues, we would have immediately bought a return ticket to Fremantle and spent the day there for a lot less money.
When we finally found our way out of the train station, we were met by massive construction in downtown Perth. We had a difficult time finding the Tourist Information Center, which was really caddy-cornered to the train station and would have been very easy to find if not for the construction. In a way it was good that we wasted so much time trying to find the center because we still arrived there five minutes before it opened at 9 a.m. The staff member who helped us told us that the best way to see Perth was on the Hop-On, Hop-Off Bus but if we wanted to use our $5 off coupons, we needed to buy the tickets at the first stop near the Swan Bell Tower, a number of blocks down the street on the Swan River. I saw a brochure for GrayLine Tours, a company that I had always thought highly of for its city tours, and thought maybe we should take one of its tours. Wonder of wonders, the GrayLine Tour was the same hop-on, hop-off Bus so we walked the distance to the first stop. Believe it or not, I thought that the GrayLine Tours endorsement was a good sign.
We have taken a number of hop-on, hop-off bus tours in cities such as Auckland and Sydney but this was one did not live up to its counterparts. The tour consisted of a figure 8 that first traveled to the east and then to the west. The commentary was recorded, and our bus driver was not good at stopping and starting it at the right place. Also, for passengers who wanted to get off the bus to spend time at a particular stop, another hop-on, hop-off bus did not come by to pick them up for two hours. There was only one bus.
To be fair, Perth has more inner city park space than any other city in the world and a charming skyline. King's Park, which overlooks downtown Perth, is one of the city's most visited and beautiful attractions. Lovekin Street in the park is an Honor Avenue with each tree commemorating a soldier who was killed in World War I or II. However, none of the attractions was worth two hours of time.
Looking back at the information on Perth that I copied from Fodor's 2010 Tour Guide for Australia, nothing in Perth is marked as "Fodor's Choice." This should have been clue No. 4. Perth is a large city of 1.3 million residents with not one outstanding tourist attraction. It would be like St. Louis without the Arch, Orlando without DisneyWorld or Punxsutawney without the Groundhog. In fact, Phil did not come out of his makeshift burrow in my purse all day. And it wasn't just because the temperature reached into the high 90s.
After we finished our tour, we stayed at the ferry terminal, where we were to catch the Swan River Scenic Cruise Ferry at 2:15 p.m. to return to Fremantle. With two hours to kill, we decided to have a beer or two at an outdoor cafe. Ginger then decided to place two orders for fish and chips for us to share, which was a great idea. We had a wonderful time sitting on the deck overlooking the Swan River and enjoying fun food and beers in 95 degree weather. Our share of the lunch, which included on order of fish and chips and four beers was $60. Nothing is inexpensive in Australia! By this time, we had spent all our Australian money and paid Ginger and Joe $30 US to cover the rest of our share.
On the Captain Cook Cruise to Fremantle, we were to see black swans and enjoy a complimentary wine tasting. Unfortunately, we picked the wrong trip. The Queen Elizabeth was in Perth the same day and had booked that departure to return their passengers who were on tours in Perth to the dock in Fremantle. A sign on the upper deck stated that the maximum number of passengers was 167. We did not want to know by how many we exceeded that number because the boat was so crowded. When I wandered to the lower deck to find out where the wine tasting was, a staff member informed me that it would be available when the boat started back to Perth from Fremantle. The number of black swans sited was two. Not a great trip!
When we were boarding the ship, a woman handed us purple flags to wave as we sailed away so that we would create a purple haze. Everyone on the ship seemed to have a different story about what the purple flags symbolized. But we all waved the flags, which was fun.
This was not one of our better days for either foreign or domestic travel. But no matter how much anyone did try to tell me or would have told me about Perth, I still would have wanted to see it myself. It just did not live up to my expectations of what the world's most isolated major city would be.
You win some, you lose some. Now you know :-)
ReplyDelete