Travel Blog: Busselton and Perth

Sorry to be so long in between posts. We had expected to get this last one up early on in the extended stretch of sea days, but we had forgotten to consider that Crystal does its level best to fill every minute of every day, especially when there's nowhere else to go. So without further ado, our last Australian ports of Busselton and Perth.

After leaving Adelaide, we had two more port stops in Australia; one in the small town of Busselton and the final port for the segment at Fremantle, the port for Perth. Both of these ports are on the west coast of Australia, so we were hoping for some calmer seas as we headed north.

Busselton is a relatively small town near the Margaret River wine region. We took a tour out into the country to see something of the area, and of course did come across some vineyards and wineries along the way.

Arriving in Busselton. We had a 30 minute tender ride
in, about 10 minutes of which was riding alongside the pier.

Margaret River wine country is a half hour outside of
Busselton

One of the wineries in the area

We passed through the small town of Cowaramup, best known for the statues of cows along the main street. Here are a few:

Our tour was one of the last to get back, and with a half-hour tender ride between shore and ship, we didn't have any time to check out one of the longest piers in the world - this one stretches over 1.2 miles in length.

The Odyssey Art at Sea exhibition took place around the same time as our departure from Busselton. Here are a few photos of the exhibit along with pictures of Monica's art:

Only a part of the full display

This segment's art classes focused on dyeing silk, with the final project being a silk scarf, either square or oblong. We did a few smaller items to play with various methods including sticking masking material on the silk, stamping with our handmade stamps, and using painted on masking materials. It was great fun!

Monica's final scarf project:

As we had an extra session once the scarves were finished, we had a little watercolour class as well. This is a quick sketch of the Cape Willoughby Light Station on Kangaroo Island.

Overnight it was a case of so far, so good, as the seas remained relatively calm. Unfortunately we had to bid farewell to some new friends we had made during the first segment, including Terry and Kerry from Sydney. Terry and Larry had been corresponding on Cruise Critic for quite some time and we finally had the chance to meet on this cruise.

We arrived in Fremantle, the port town for Perth, early in the morning. It was a good thing, too, as the crew were expecting a huge restock here in preparation for the seven-day crossing of the Indian Ocean and the out-of-the-way ports to follow before reaching South Africa.

All of those containers as well as the trucks were
offloaded into the ship's stores.

We kept out of the way, having our breakfast in the suite.

Of course the ship needed to refuel as well.

Our tour today took us by ferry boat from Fremantle to the city centre of Perth, where we would be returning to the ship by bus. We had no idea what any of this would be like, and were quite surprised by the width of the Swan River that connects the two communities. The river may have been navigable by the original discoverers, but there is no shipping there now. In fact, there are a couple of bridges right by the port that block access to the river for anything higher than a two-deck ferry boat.

Being on a rather large river, and with the largest population
in Western Australia in the Perth/Fremantle area, everyone seemed
to have a boat. Our tour guide mentioned that in the 1980s it
was more expensive to buy a slip for a boat than it was to buy
a house!

This huge sandbar is a great place for windsurfers, fishermen
and apparently even the dolphins that hang out in the river. We did
see one from the ferry.

This high level pedestrian bridge is in the Botanic Gardens,
which is right next to King's Park

The downtown waterfront of Perth. There is lots of new
building going on here

The city of Perth is compact, much like downtown Toronto, and it has lots of green space near the Swan River. King's Park is one of the largest urban park areas in the world, actually slightly larger than Stanley Park in Vancouver; it is a beautiful area with great views over the city and river.

The view from King's Park

Driving around - what could be more typically Aussie?

The Perth ANZAC Memorial in the park

Boats, boats and more boats. It's almost as busy as
Sydney harbour but with fewer ferries.

The whole area here was settled by freemen, meaning people who were not sent here as convicts, but chose to come to Australia, in the early to mid 1800s. The discovery of gold in the area of Calgoolie, about 600 km from the coast, made it a very popular place for about 50 years while just about anyone could stake his claim and see what he could find. Eventually the gold rush ended, but the gold hasn't run out yet. There is still a very large mine in Calgoolie that produces a good amount of gold every year. In fact Perth, as remote as it is, has become the headquarters for some of the world's biggest gold and ore producers like Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. It is a beautiful city and one we'd like to be able to explore further on a future trip to Australia.

Of course, the big event for the day was the sailaway, and the beginning of our stretch of seven days at sea, crossing the Indian Ocean to Port Louis, Mauritius. We were all hoping, again, for a smooth trip - we found out that about 100 people who had booked this segment of the cruise would only be boarding in Mozambique so they could avoid all this sea time. Maybe they got some kind of deal on a 14 night cruise instead of the 21?? But we were looking forward to the experience, one way or the other.