9 October 2013 - Perth City Day Out

Our extended Scheffer family, minus David and Moshe, ventured into the city today.  We caught the train from Wellard and found the train to be lovely and clean and on time.  Upon arriving, Jiraporn and Josh went and played amongst a waterfall and then we walked from the train station to the Perth Mint – no easy feat for Jiraporn walking in her massively high wedges.  So, when we arrived we had just made it onto a tour that had started so listened to a little bit of the history before going into the building to watch some coins being stamped, etc.  We also got a live show of liquid gold being poured to form a bullion but unfortunately no pictures allowed.  We also witnessed the largest gold coin in the world weighing a massive 1 tonne but again no pictures.  After the tour we had a look through the gift and jewellery shop but as usual I couldn’t convince Josh to buy me anything.  We left here and caught a free CAT bus across town ending up near a McDonalds so stopped in for a cuppa.  Jiraporn left us at this point to head back home while the rest of us jumped on another free bus to head to Kings Park.  The tree lined streets were beautiful and so was the park.  It was exceptionally maintained and had a wonderful view across Perth city.  We got a look at Bell Tower from a distance, as well as some of the mighty mining buildings, BHP Billiton appearing to be the tallest.  The State War Memorial is a lovely big stone building with the many, many names of our fellow war heroes.  We walked through the manicured lawns, paths and gardens and past the old Swan Brewery building until we reached the bushland section entailing Law Walk and the Federation Walkway.  We stopped at a water garden and watched a bee nearly drowning followed by a gorgeous group of about ten ducklings with their parents.  Further along there were lovely gardens with many native plants which eventually lead us to a pretty big boab tree – however, nowhere near as big as some of the ones we saw in the Kimberleys.  We walked back to town and had a squiz at a few shops and arcades, the loveliest of them being the London Court arcade.  It is a replica of the Elizabethan times and has big iron gates on each end of the arcade and a scattering of shields and crests throughout.  We got the train back home and enjoyed a bit of rest time until early in the evening when we went to Uncle Rob and Jiraporn’s house for an authentic Thai dinner.  Jiraporn is a fantastic cook and I’m sure the kids and Josh agree with me going by how much we all ate.  After dinner the kids went back to the lounge room and back to watching movies and playing games in the lounge room while the adults adjourned to the pool room for a couple of games.  I had a game against Moshe and it was probably the longest game of the night going by how slowly we sank the balls, Moshe ended up winning.  I left the pool games for the men and Jiraporn and I went for a coffee and she kindly pampered me by painting my nails for me.  We had a lovely day and night with our family.