17 Today we are making a bee line for Perth, 425 km. But by 11:00 we are getting bored with the interior driving (all really nice farm land, but miles and miles of it) and head back out to the coast which brings us to a place called Mandurah and it seems to be interesting enough that we will stay here for tonight and we'll check it out tomorrow.
18 Although Mandurah is a larger center, the down town is still only a 1/2 hour drive through and we buzz of to Clifton Lake for a walk to see the thrombolites - oxygen creating organisms that make little rock like humps in the water. These are throw backs to the evolutionary times when our atmosphere was being created. With that done, we head up the coast to Freemantle and Perth. A stop in Freemantle for a pizza and a brief look at the Ship Wreck Museum has us planning how the next few days will unfold. Freemantle is said to be best on the weekend, so we carry on to Perth - basically the same city - as we will do Perth tomorrow and come back to Freemantle when it is a happening place.
19 We are back to taking the public transit again, because the motor home is too big to maneuver on city streets. Actually, it is nice to be able to just stare out the window and (for me) not worry about determining where we are on the GPS and the map so that we arrive where we plan - we know where this thing goes! All things considered, Perth is just another city. We explore the streets well and our priority is to find a great place for dinner. Just talking to people is how it all happens - Glen decided that he needed to have a personal care kit (nail clipper, scissors etc in a travel case) and just by chance in one of the arcades (malls) that we are there is a shop for such things. So we get chatting with the owners and long story short we are directed to an Italian restaurant for dinner (The BEST!). "Perugino" is all that they said it would be, this is a good thing as we have not had great food experiences so far, except for "Appellations" in the Barossa wine region.
20 Back to Freemantle, it is an easy drive from where we are stationed. We spend the day doing "tourist" things, buying souvenirs, lunching in sidewalk cafes, doing tours. We are now the proud owners of an authentic didgeridoo, Glen will entertain guests (kidding). The Freemantle Prison tour is fascinating; I never want to go to jail! This place started, to house the prisoners sent from England and operated until 1991 as a high security prison. They only ever had a "bucket" for a toilet! (no such thing as plumbing in 1850, so no room was allowed for flush toilets) Oh, for a short period they tried chemical toilets, but the inmates figured out how to make the chemicals "palatable" for drinking by filtering it through a loaf of bread and they got all disorderly, so that idea was disbanded. With the chemicalized bread, they used to leave it on their window sills so the resident birds could eat it, then they (the inmates) would laugh themselves silly (remember they were stoned on toilet chemical) as the birds - now drunk - would fly into the walls! Small things amuse small minds - right?
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