Perth, West Australia has nothing of particular interest to pull in tourists; unless you are drawn in by the fact that it is the most isolated capital city in the world. For “most isolated” read… there is exactly nothing for hundreds and hundreds of miles East, West and North of here except blazing hot desert and there is nothing but thousands of miles of the Indian Ocean to the West. Perth hasn’t got anything particular of note; it has a peculiar thing of note in that its most famous “feature” is called the Fremantle Doctor and it has nothing whatsoever to do with medicine. It’s an onshore wind that brings relief from the sweltering summer heat.

It all sounds rather bleak. BUT, for all this promise of nothing Perth is absolutely wonderful. It is the most “liveable” city I’ve ever had the good fortune to visit. It has, as I’ve mentioned already, a fine proximity to the Indian Ocean, it also boasts: beautiful gardens and parks, an enormous and vibrant café, bar and restaurant scene, the beautiful WACA (a cricket ground) a pair of fine horse race tracks, an Aussie Rules Football stadium, great people of diverse ethnicity, wonderful neighbourhoods and did I mention an enormous and vibrant café, bar and restaurant scene? I love this city. Anyone who is out there looking to employ a fellah they don’t know to do very little but be paid handsomely to “work” in Perth, then I’m your man!

While here Heide and I took a walking tour around the city. As I’ve intimated there may well be no well known “must see” spots such as other great cities like; Sydney, London, New York, Rome, or dare I say it, even Paris can boast. But, it is a fine place to just walk around. The views of the city from Kings Park are great, as is the park itself, which interestingly, or perhaps as a testament to the fact that there isn’t a great deal of tourist stuff here, is West Australia’s number one tourist attraction! Yep it’s just a park and not the kind that Disney has around the world. Just your ordinary, everyday sort of park where Fido lays out little parcels for the unsuspecting. Except that it‘s much better than just ordinary and this not being London, New York or especially Paris there is precious little of Fido’s mess around.

On the walk we stopped off at the Perth Mint (nothing like a Murray Mint, but still too good to hurray mint!) Back in the good old / bad old days of when Perth was the main centre of the Black Swan Colony and calling the Park “Kings” wasn’t considered hideously smarmy,... gold, in vast quantities, was discovered just a short walk from Perth (well actually it was about 40 days walk through the most inhospitable land imaginable but scale is all relative, especially out here) Consequently it was decided that this would be a great chance to turn a desolate outpost into a wealthy colony. To do so it would be necessary to melt the gold and mint coinage here. The old mint (though it was new then) opened in 1899and was operational until 1992 when it became a tourist attraction. A pretty good tourist attraction at that. I got to lift (alas, not permanently) a 400oz bar of gold. It felt pretty heavy and Heide decided that those folk who pull off massive bullion heists are not only good thieves but must be pretty tough too just to be able to carry off all the beautiful loot. We watched a goldsmith pour an ingot. It was a fascinating spectacle and the golden glow of the precious molten metal was amazing. In the darkened room the liquid gold (and I’m not talking about beer) shone as brightly as a spectacular sunrise. I can also let you know that if I’m worth my weight in gold to any of you (I know, fat chance) then I’m actually worth about $1.5 million. Pretty sweet eh? Who needs a golden goose or even a juicy pension when I’m worth that much?

By now you’re probably aware that Heide is a big fan of horses and I like to win when placing a flutter on them. If you didn’t already know this then get back to the beginning of this website and re read. You’ll be tested later. Anyway, we decide to take a trip to one of the two racetracks in Perth.  Ascot Park is a beaut and so are many of the wonderfully turned out guests, and I do mean the two-legged variety not the giddy ups! If we’d had a lousy day I’d have probably left this entry by now, but we didn’t!  We were natural born bettors! We picked winner after winner and were only miffed once, when the jockey of Mr Tamborine Man tried to scupper our joy at landing a sweet exacta that was going to pay as royally as the Mint. Luckily for us her complaint of being bumped was over ruled. Ha! It’s a big persons game (well except for the jockeys themselves of course). Get over it kid and next time don’t argue with the referee; unless you’re riding the nag I’ve backed of course!