A Colorful Day in Perth

29 March 2013

It's Good Friday, and just about everything is closed.  All stores, all government agencies, just a few restaurants open.

So we took the train into Perth.  Sunday and holiday schedule, but at least it got us there.

We initially planned to go to King's Park, but with the crazy holiday transit schedule, we were running a bit late.  So we decided to just head down to the waterfront esplanade and walk around for a bit.

We  first walked through a park near some government and justice buildings - with this crazy sculpture of giant pen nibs.  They were incredible, just giant pen nibs with incised and relief ornamentation, sticking in the ground, creating almost a fence entrance to the justice complex.  All kinds of possible meanings there - I'll leave you to ponder on what you think the pen nibs may represent.

Perth is split by the Swan River, which forms almost a huge lake in this area - we walked along the area facing South Perth, so I guess this was the south side of North Perth - if that makes sense.

This part of the Swan River is HUGE, and it barely seems like a river!  There's a very narrow channel that runs from the ocean (down by Fremantle) that comes all the way  into this area, and the Swan River feeds into this - so it might be some kind of bay, or harbour - but on the maps, it just calls the entire area Swan River (which I find quite confusing).

Anyway, there are various sculptures, beautiful palm trees where the various parrots and lorikeets and such roost at night (we could hear them chattering away, and see various flashes of green and red as they flew from tree to tree and settled in for the night).  There are walking paths, bike paths, and the cars drive along on the other side of the green belt.  It really was a very pretty and peaceful place for an afternoon stroll.

We headed toward town, hoping to find a restaurant or café that was open - no luck there.  But we did find all kinds of other interesting things - a fabulous larger-than-life sculpture of several kangaroos, doing their normal kangaroo things but in a more artistic composition.  And backed by the court building, which changes color!  It was crazy - as evening fell and the street lights came on, the sculpture took on a whole new life, and I had fun trying to capture the changing colors of the court behind the kangaroos!

 

And then, just because it was that kind of night, when we got back to Rockingham and walked back from the bus stop, there were fireworks!  All coming from the area by the medical center!  Absolutely no idea who had the fireworks, or why - I don't think anyone celebrates Good Friday with fireworks?

But it was a gorgeous ending to such a colorful day!