Kings Park for 5 Please

George and Marucia (Mike's parents) arrived right on schedule on Friday evening. As George just stated 'Ho hum, another gorgeous day' - the weather continues to be near perfection (it is now Monday morning as I just get to starting to write this blog).

We travelled in to Perth on Saturday - this time with Kyle. All 5 of us first headed to Kings Park and toured the gardens. This time the water gardens were open also. Mike continued his theme of tree photography as you can see from the shots. The park has many statues also - Queen Victoria is photoed here.

The Marri (I think I have that correct) tree has interesting flowers. The flowers erupt from upside down buds. As mentioned before, there are no petals, but the colour and texture is still present in the stamen. After the flower has finished its life, the remnant shell remains on the tree as seen at left. There is a series of childrens books written about the 'caps' which we were told about on our trip to Gingin. A visitor from England was enchanted with the caps and created a whole series of stories about the 'pixie' like creatures who wore them. I will have to try to find the books....

A few extra shots from the botanical gardens here including a photo of the Aboriginal meeting place in the park. Even prior to Kings Park being established, this was also a place of great significance to the aboriginals as it is on a hill overlooking the harbour. The Beedawong Meeting Place (at right) is still used by aboriginals for significant gatherings.

After lunch, we headed into the city area to catch some sights. We visited St. George's Anglican Cathedal. The building is classic Gothic revival style. It was built in the 1880's (consecrated 1888) and has very unique brick work (the brick clay comes from Rottnest Island).

Inside there are several 'St. George and the Dragon' iconic references in statues, stain glass and on the altar. As with almost every church or cathedral we have ever visited, the building was under scaffold on the exterior as the brickwork is being restored.

Passing through the city, we could not resist riding the kangaroos (Marucia and Kyle here) - Kyle is quite certain that the roos are NOT to scale!

Next we headed over to the Swan Bells - and arrived just the entry door was being locked. With some humble grovelling we were able to gain entry. We scurried up to the top for the view (not overly high - just 6 stories), then visited the bells themselves. The bells were donated to Perth from St. Martin in the Fields in England in 1988 for Australia's bicentennary. The church containing them was unable to support their weight any longer - at 11 tons. The tower in Perth was designed to support them and finally completed construction in August of 2000, and the bells now have a new home which should last them for many many years.

The art of becoming a bell ringer is not a simple skill. The ringers are volunteers and require extensive training prior to becoming active. Ringers actually do exchanges to other bell towers and there is quite the community of bell ringers or 'changers' as they are known. Sorry, no photos of the actual bells here (you can visit the link to the Swan Bells site) as the lighting was very dim and we were hurried through since they were technically closed. Then home for dinner and another sound sleep!