Ride a Bronze Swan
29th July, Perth CBD, Australia
On our way back from the Pinnacles yesterday, just as we were getting near to our chosen caravan park for the day, I took a wrong turn, one that must have been fate. After all this time driving around in a van named Ethel, I pulled over on Ethel Street to do a U-turn. Naturally, this was a photo opportunity not to be missed:
Having spent much of yesterday around the caravan park, today we ventured into the city centre. I had imagined Perth to be a much bigger city than it actually is. Sure, the suburbs stretch out in all directions, so it's not unlike other major Australian cities in this respect, but the centre itself appears to be smaller than, say, Melbourne. The images I had seen of Perth - the night-time shots of the city's skyline reflected in the Swan River - suggested something much bigger. However, I am always a little wary about driving in a new city for the first time (even if it is smaller than expected). Are the drivers here a bit crazy? Any quirky traffic control things I should know about? If this sounds a little wimpy of me, I'll just mention that we don't have 3rd party insurance cover on the van - an accident would cost us!
Driving in Perth wasn't too bad at all. There were the usual one-way systems to try to work out (which invariably meant doing a few circuits until I got them right!) but fairly soon I had the centre pretty much worked out. The reason for driving around: I was doing a whistle-stop tour of all the city's backpackers to put up for-sale notices for Ethel. I had a map with about 13 red dots marked on there, indicating sites to call in on, which ensured that I snaked around most of the city centre, covering the east and western ends and also the Northbridge district, where most of the restaurants, nightlife and backpackers are situated.
With the donkey work out of the way, it was time to do a little bit of sightseeing. We hopped on to one of the free CAT (Central Area Transit) buses and went down to Barrack Square, by the water. Here you can find the Swan Belltower, resembling billowing sails. It is possible to go up the tower but we got there too late. However, entry is free on the first Tuesday of each month - hey, that's next week! You know where we'll be next Tuesday then.
The Swan Belltower, donated to Perth by London's St-Martin-in-the-Fields
Academy.
Dotted around the belltower are a number of bronze sculptures of swans. The one directly in front of the belltower had a very shiny back, suggesting that it had been sat on many, many times for the purposes of photo poses. So, I did what any normal tourist would do - I sat on the back of the swan, grabbed it around the neck then began whooping, kicking my legs in the air and slapping its tail feathers with my free hand. I carried on doing this, despite the man sat on the nearby bench giving me some funny looks (and, as it turned out, a bus-load of tourists sweeping past in front of me), until Manda walked my way, evidently having taken the photo. It felt like an age that I was making a fool of myself there, but sometimes you have to do these things for that 'Kodak moment':
This swan ain't goin' nowhere!
