Fremantle/Perth

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I slept well last night docked here on the Swan River in Fremantle. Clay said he didn't sleep well at all since he kept waking up missing the rocking and rolling. You can never satisfy everyone.

We had to get an early start to get to Perth on time for our morning Segway tour. We went up and had a cold breakfast at Waves as soon as it opened. We needed jackets when we headed out this morning. Yesterday's cold breeze was still around today coupled with a lot more cloudy skies. By the time we got to Perth on the train though, we had to shed the jackets. It was supposed to be about 60F this morning and 72F this afternoon. That sounds about right.

We got to the train station a half hour earlier than we had planned but that was a good thing because when we got out of the Perth train station, Clay/Google headed us in the wrong direction and we walked about 8 blocks out of our way before correcting course. We got to the Segway office 15 minutes early so we were still OK. We had a private tour at 9am for the 1 hour Riverside Tour. That was great. We learned that the Swan River was a fresh water river when Europeans first arrived. After the 1870s or so the limestone bar at the mouth was dynamited to form the harbor we are using today and now it is a saltwater estuary all the way to Perth at least. We saw one dolphin in the river several times, or several dolphins. Our guide told us that there is a population of a species of bottlenose dolphins who live solely in the Swan and never go to sea. They also have bull sharks living in the Swan. He said it was very lucky to see dolphins as he hadn't seen one in weeks. He told us about the black swans that live in the river, giving it its name. We didn't see any on the Segway tour, but saw a few later around Elizabeth and Barracks Quays.

After the Segway tour, we walked around to have a closer look at some things like statues, bridges, black swans and the Duyfken. We learned about the Duyfken, a replica of the 1606 Dutch ship that was the first European ship documented to arrive in Australia yesterday at the WA Maritime Museum's special exhibit. Also, it was listed on our Fremantle map and there was a big permanent sign for it behind Little Creatures, but it wasn't there. Evidently, it has been in Perth since December.  After that we headed back uphill to look for restaurants because Google misled Clay again by telling him there weren't really any restaurants on the waterfront around us. That was patently untrue as we'd learn when we walked back from lunch to the Capt. Cook Cruises dock. Anyway... we found a takeout food place with sidewalk seating and we ordered a bunch of Asian finger foods to share. It was good but noisy. Since we had eaten fast food we still had about an hour to kill. Clay handed me his phone and told me to pick a nearby attraction. I picked the Perth Mint, 6 blocks away. We got there in time for the 12:30pm tour, but I was afraid since the tours were hourly that would be too tight for us to rush back down to the waterfront. Instead, we just wandered the grounds and ground floor. We looked at the gold traders in the bullion room, the Argyle diamonds in the Diamond and Jewelry rooms. We saw a little .10 carat pink Argyle diamond for over $7500 AUD. It was barely visible! I told Clay that I didn't need that and he said, just as well. He says he was offered a half carat in a shop in Sydney for $5000 in 2006. I don't remember but he is kicking himself for not buying it then. We walked back down to the Barracks Quay and checked in with Capt. Cook Cruises and got our boarding pass. Clay had some ice cream, I used the toilets again, we saw another black swan, I had some ice cream (mine was better, hidden down an alley by Segway Tours) and then it was time to board. The ride back to Fremantle was nice and smooth. There was lots to see but unfortunately it was impossible to understand the Captain's narration over the speaker system. It was too garbled and people were talking over it. So we might just as well have taken the ferry for a fraction of the cost.

We just came right back to Sirena after 3pm when we got back to Fremantle. Clay went to the gym and I took a shower and typed this.

We are scheduled to sail at 8pm tonight so we'll try to eat upstairs tonight in Terrace beforehand. We did eat at Terrace and it was Fish al Fresco again. I found nothing but a bowl of penne in tomato sauce to eat. Not even a dessert! I was hungry too! The captain came over the loudspeakers right at 6:30pm to talk about his decision to delay our departure here from Fremantle. He said a low pressure system had caused the really rough seas that last night sailing. He thought by laying up here an extra night and day that it would have a chance to blow past. It did. Unfortunately, another took its place and it will hit us sometime early tomorrow morning. So, we have 3 straight sea days to our next port of  Kangaroo Island. We can only continue to hope for a break in the parade of low pressure systems.

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