Sunday, 17 June 2012

Sharks and sights

Grant was nit feeling too wel on Thursday - so we ended up having a bit of a down time day. Ventured out for a bit of solo shopping. Unfortunately, I made a call that I didn't need my raincoat based on the blue sky out the window. I got down to the Swan river to take photo and thought, " hmm - looks like it's raining on the other side there." Next time I looked, the rain was considerably closer. I turned back - by the time I had reached the other side of the carpark where I was standing, it was falling on my head and I realized just how far I was from any kind of shelter. I arched the umbrellas of a closed cafe with the rain pelting down and then had to spend some uncomfortable time with my hair dripping over my face and squelching in my shoes. On Friday, we headed for the aquarium. Grant was hoping to go snorkelling with the sharks (I didn't say anything about his sanity). This was first of all an adventure on perths public transport system - which we have found to be excellent. Two trains and a bus later,we arrived at hillary's boat harbour to marvel at the marina full of luxury craft. Some were for sale - you could pick up an "ideal first boat" for a mere 80k. Unfortunately, the spots on the swimming with sharks were all taken for the day (who ARE these crazy people?) so we had to content ourselves with just looking through the glass. The highlights for me were the sea dragons, the touch pool - with an extremely friendly little stingray who came up to be patted like a dog and the sea turtles in rehab (following from seagoing incidents not from any other Nemo style incidents). We did see them hand feeding the huge stingrays and the, surprisingly timid, grey nurse sharks. I have to say, my whole impression of stingrays changed. The diver was standing on the base of the pool practically wrapped in rays as they took the fish from his hands. Tricky being a creature with your eyes on one side and your mouth on the other... I am still nit a fan of sharks though. After the aquarium, we headed back into Perth for a look around - managing not to get drenched this tim. Perth feels, not surprisingly i suppose, like a city that has recently had a bit of money spent on it. There are some nice pedestrian malls and the historic buildings look like they have all been recently steam cleaned. We headed back to the Swan river and saw the bell tower and then back to our lovely hotel to watch the sun set over the ocean from our own little balcony - priceless.

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