Kings Park

Today Fin washed our filthy car which took quite a while since the bugs that kamikazied onto it were stuck well and it took a lot of elbow grease to get it off. I used the phone line in the caravan park here to upload yesterday’s BLOG then after lunch we went to Kings Park and Botanic Gardens to see if there were any more bodies buried there. There is a wildflower display on at the moment so at least we could see some of the ones that we missed due to the drought causing reduced numbers of them this year. They had them divided into sections of Western Australia so you could see where they normally grow too. The plantings were beautiful and my camera worked hard all afternoon! We walked and walked and walked but the park and gardens are very picturesque overlook Perth from Mount Eliza (62 m above sea level) with fantastic views of the Swan River that is the lifeblood of the city. The park is 406 hectares in size so we didn’t actually walk the whole thing but the part we did see is lovely and an enjoyable relaxing place to spend an afternoon. There are a lot of touches that make it special including plaques of various kinds set in the paving and sculptures, one of which was a very impressive tribute to women. The introduction to it is set in the path leading to the pond where it is situated. The water features were a pleasant oasis among the gardens and one has a great fountain that has one super high spout then when it stops, smaller ones come up two at a time and it is at the bottom of a grassed hill so you can come across it from the top as we did which is very effective. It was a lovely sunny afternoon so it was an ideal way to pass the day.
After dinner at a really good Chinese restaurant that Fin found by chance last time we were here because he wanted to know where the station is for when we go on the Indian Pacific we went back to Kings Park to see if we could get some interesting photos of the city lights. We drove into the street, again by chance, that had lights shining up on some magnificent white trunked eucalyptus trees so they got photographed as well. I was a bit disappointed with the amount of reflection on the river since I expected more since Perth is along the Swan but the tall buildings are not close enough to the water to give a really good effect. You can see what I did manage from the photos anyway. The War Memorial is lit up at night too but the park itself is quite dark in parts but it was still nice to take a walk along and look over the city and river in the dark.