Clive Best

Back in Sydney now for the last few days before we leave Australia alowing us to see this wonderful city. We are staying in Newtown, which is an up and coming suburb just outside the main city centre. It looks like a Victorian suburb of London or any major UK town. Better still there have been preservation orders placed on all the old buildings which stop shops and developers transforming their frontages. This is one of the tragedies of Britain where chain stores like Boots, M&S, Waterstones etc. are simply allowed to plaster their massive shop signs and transform entrances to mediaeval buildings. As a result Newtown and other suburbs look much the same as  they did 50 years ago despite massive rises in property prices.

The waterfront at Circular Quay is just stunning. It looks even better from one of the ferries taking you to Manly or elsewhere. The Opera House is a work of genius and contrasts say the Festival Hall and the  South Bank in London built around the same time. One is timeless, the other looks dated, monolithic and dirty. The Sydney Harbour Bridge looks better in real life than it does in a photo and is an iconic piece of engineering. Yesterday we went for a swim at Bondi Beach. It really is a lovely beach despite the thousands who go there during the holiday season. The sand is clean and  fine and there is enough room for everyone  but swimming between the flags is a little hard when they put the flags about 30 meters apart, but the surf was small so no problems. Strangely enough it reminded me of Newquay in Cornwall, but that may be because Newquay itself got based on Bondi . The water is cooler in Sydney than in Perth or Adelaide which is fine when you get so hot in the sun.

We flew to Sydney from Perth with Virgin Blue. The last day in Perth we went to the Aquarium which is quite a way outside Perth which we reached by train and bus. There is a trendy new resort with a Marina, water park and expensive apartments. The aquarium was really good and exhibited fish from different local areas in Western Australia. You walked through a mega tank with 15 sharks, sting rays, groupers etc. pools of coral and rays and tanks with sea snakes. While in  Glenelg I saw a huge sting ray swim into the beach from the jetty. It reached about waist high water before turning back out to see. They are harmless unless threatened and they do carry a powerful sting in their tails

We arrived in Perth on Thursday so today is our second full day in the city. It is a beautiful city with an attractive pedestrian shopping area adjoining the business part next to the Swan River estuary. Yesterday we took the boat down the river to Fremantle which shows the great situation of the city inland from the sea but still within easy reach. All along the river are beautiful waterfront houses with marinas full of expensive yachts and motor cruisers. Looks like a lot of people are getting rich in Perth. One of the houses was massive and I overheard a remark that it was recently sold for 56 million dollars - the most expensive house in Western Australia. The whole city seems affluent and the prices are higher than elsewhere - about a third higher than Adelaide. You can easily pay up to 10 dollars for a pint of beer which hasn’t stopped me buying beer yet !

Fremantle is a small town with a long maritime history. The buildings are often  stone brick type town houses which gives the place an English seaside town type of appearance.  We went back on the train and discovered that Perth has a good rail link service. Today we took the train to Cottersloe to go to the beach which has lovely white sand and clean water. There are endless beaches like this up the coast many with no-one on them.

Perth and Western Australia have got rich on minerals and mining. It is the third largest gold producer in the world and there is Zinc, Iron Ore, Uranium coal and natural gas. This probably explains why the city seems so affluent with parks and expensive suburbs. We even saw 2 Ferraris today in Cottesloe so despite the socialist government someone is getting rich. The natural environment and quality of life in Perth are probably among the best in the world.

Before arriving in Perth we spent a couple of nights again in Grenelg, Adelaide’s  seaside town. It was here that the first british settlers arrived in Western Australia around 1830. Today it is the day out at the beach spot for young people arriving on the Tram. Our swimming was tempered by the news that sharks had been seen just off the coast recently ! We took a boat ride down the river to Adelaide Zoo. The river becomes a lake in the centre of Adelaide making the town very pleasant. The queues for the famous Panda were too long for us to wait I have to admit.

The last few days we have spent exploring the region around Port Augusta. The weather has been very hot but finally cooled to a mere 35 today. On New Year’s eve went to Whyalla which is a steel town on the other side of the estuary about 50 minutes from Port Augusta. The main interest for us was the very shallow beach area which would look good in a Red Sea resort. The weather was so hot - over 40 degrees that I couldn’t face the long ankle depth walk out for 300 metres to swim. Whyalla is a largish affluent place with good sea and boating access.

Then on New Year’s day we drove down to Melrose because I saw an advert for local wine there. Melrose is in the Southern Flinders and was one of the main settler towns for agriculture. There was a great detailed museum there which highlighted the ambitions and frustrations of the early settlers. There would be one or two years’ good harvest followed by drought, plagues of locusts and mice. However it is beautiful countryside with a lovely old pub there facing Mount Remarkable. It is on the edge of pastural agriculture and in fact there is a line north of which supposedly farming was not viable.

On Saturday 2nd Jan we drove to Wilpena Pound which is a very beautiful reserve about 3 hours drive north of Port Augusta. It is dominated by a large crater-like escarpment and surrounded by beautiful forests. There is a system of trust whereby visitors pay a park entrance fee. It really is a fabulous park with kangaroos, old Gum Tree forests and long hikes through the forest and hills. We could only spend a couple of hours there but managed to get lost and nearly walk into the biggest spider’s web I have ever seen. The spider looking big and mean in the middle of it. I expect it was deadly poisonous. On the drive back we stopped off in Hawker and found an art gallery full of prints and original paintings by a local artist Jeff Morgan. We bought some prints for Naomi’s house.

Yesterday we went for lunch at the Old Willow Brewery near Quorn. The daughter of the owner is a friend of Naomi’s and the restaurant is in a beautiful spot beside the old Pichi Richi Railway. This was way the best meal I have eaten yet in Australia. I had a salad of grilled freshwater crayfish called Yappies and an armoricain type sauce followed by a perfect Rib-eye steak. I had a good sleep when we got back to Port Augusta.

Tomorrow we leave for Adelaide and then fly to Perth on Thursday.