Perth

We have spent only two days here in Perth, we thought that would be enough for a taste. Unfortunately the weather was working against us.

We had only planned two things, one being a tour of the Perth mint and the second being a ghost tour of the Freemantle jail. Sara had also wanted to visit the gardens and also get a nice evening picture of the city skyline.

Well..... We made it to the Mint. The first night here was ok, just a bit windy, but by morning the wind had picked up a bit and the clouds had settled in. We first went for a trip out to Bullsbrook, where dad was stationed when I was 3-4 yrs old. We saw my old house and the kindergarten I went to.

From there we drove back towards the city with the aid of the tom-tom. It seems tom-tom and Sara were working together as it took me straight to the Margaret River Chocolate factory. We went in and it was wall to wall chocolate with viewing windows through to the manufacturing areas. The kids found the sample bowls and disappeared back to them every now and then. We purchased some nice truffles for dessert.

Back on the road we went past lots of cellar doors that mostly seemed closed, possibly due to it being a Monday. Anyways, into the city we found the Mint easily enough but not so a car park. Once we found that it was a brisk walk to the mint, just in time to see the gold pouring demonstration. unfortunately it was no photos in here or in the gold vaults but the kids loved the show. Caitlyn was particularly interested when some of the gold spilled out of the mould and onto the floor

After the pouring we went back to the start of the gold tour and moved through the exhibits. they had a collection of gold bullion, which would be a nice collectable to get into i would think, then a display of all the various forms of gold nuggets found. We even got to lift up a real gold bullion that was valued at $600000.

After all this we moved into the viewing are of the precious metal coin stamping. some of the machines were highly automated but some still had an operator loading a coin blank into a press and then unloading at the end of the cycle. We bought a souvenir silver and gold coin with all of our names engraved in the back.

After the Mint we moved onto the main city malls where we just strolled in and out of the various malls as the weather had turned very cold and windy. we did this until we had to return to the car.

Our second day in Perth, due to the bad weather was spent indoors at a local shopping mall. All the girls got their shopping fix and we stocked up for the next leg. We ended the day with a great dinner at Scott and Nicole’s in the evening. Thank you