Day 76-79 Day Tripper (Part 2)
When I was out in the CBD it was amazing how many locations in the city I remembered from my first trip here 20 years ago. Although I wasn’t here for more than a couple of days, Perth had obviously made quite an impression on me.
The first thing I remembered was the hilarious London Court, a mock Tudor shopping arcade that seems a bit Monty Python-esk. It was built in 1937 by a wealthy gold businessman, and made it into the register of significant cultural buildings in 1978 by the National Trust of Australia!
My next memory was Kings Park, which I vividly remember visiting. And no wonder, it’s the most popular tourist destination in Western Australia! Yes, it’s visited by just under the population of Scotland every year. It’s a combination of parkland, botanical gardens and bushland. The grass is like a putting green, very well-kept and lush, considering it is so dry.
At 1.5 square miles, it feels huge and you could spend a whole day there. It’s a bit of a walk from the train station, but worth it. The views of Perth harbour are spectacular, and the Botanic Gardens had an interesting section regarding biosecurity and invasive species. The exhibit explained there are 1200 native Australian plants and animal species that are threatened or endangered because of introduced species.
However, what I really remembered was the DNA Tower. This is a double helix white staircase built in 1966 to resemble a DNA molecule. For pub quiz contestants DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is important in understanding health, so it was interesting that a fitness club was training there (running up and down the tower, and beside it skipping and doing stretches).
Thinking of my own health I walked back to the city centre rather than taking a bus. I’m glad I did because walking by the River Swan, I got some fantastic views of Perth Harbour, and began to feel it rivaled Sydney Harbour, but in a totally different way.
I had just been to one unique tower, now I was at another, this time the Bell Tower. This is like Big Ben in that it rings on the hour, and the bells have a name called the Swan Bells. The Swan Bells include bells from a church in Trafalgar Square, London (St. Martin-in-the-Fields) which in the 1980s were due to be melted down and recast, but thanks to the intervention of the ‘Australian and New Zealand Association of Bell Ringers’, they were sent to Australia instead. Just as well, as the history of these bells from London dates back to the reign of Elizabeth I, and they were rang at Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, and the homecoming of Captain Cook.
The Bell Tower was Western Australia’s Millennium project, you know dear reader, like the Millennium Dome in London. Unlike the ‘Dome’ the Bell Tower is still used for the purpose it was designed for. I liked the observation deck at the top, which provided more great views of Perth. They were advertising for a ‘Trainee Bellringer, so if the IT course doesn’t work out, this could be a fallback!
The last attraction I visited was the State Library of Western Australia. How did it compare to Adelaide or Melbourne? Well, it had an interesting exhibition about memories and mementos, from peoples’ individual lives, and shared cultural experiences, which seemed appropriate, as this blog has been a great way of remembering my travel experiences and sharing them more widely.
