Entries about beach

I wandered down to Fremantle, about half an hour by car south of my Arbnb in Innaloo. On the way I stopped at a beach to sample the Western Australia beach lifestyle. Perth shares a lot of climatic and geographic features with Southern California and likewise folks are pretty actively involved in outdoor beach activities. Here are a few beach shots.

Some young folks taking lifeguard rescue training.

A triathalon training club hard at work

Of course, some surfing

and sailing

Setting aside the temptation to swim 5 miles, I proceeded to Fremantle to have brunch.

Very tasty - corn fritters with poached eggs guacamole and greens!

Fremantle is an old trading town that had a boom during the Australian Gold Rush. As a result of its decline, a lot of the old buildings were preserved through neglect but have been beautifully restored in recent years. Here's a streetscape; several other streets look equally good.

There is also a thriving art scene and lots of galleries, some in restored freight warehouses.

After much wandering on a very warm day, a frosty beverage was called for. This brings up another feature of Perth - it is an expensive city. Food is pretty costly (though tipping is not usual, which helps) - this pint cost me about $10 US. It was a pretty good IPA, not a hop monster, hand drawn so it was not over carbonated, but, unfortunately, a bit too cold for my taste. However, by sitting very quietly and drinking very slowly, I manged to choke it down .

To end the day I headed north along the coast. As sunset approached, I decided I needed to find a beach to see my first Indian Ocean sunset. Fortunately, I ran across Tom Simpson beach more or less at random and hustled out to the beach. I made it with maybe 2 minutes to spare, and got some pretty nice images. Here are a couple.

Wandered a bit farther up the coast and had a nice bite to eat at an outdoor table at Burns Beach. Nice way to end the day.

Today my AirBnb host Susanne and I headed off for Rottnest Island, a popular tourist destination about 20 miles off the coast near Perth.

More about the history of the island later. We took Rottnest Fast Ferries and rented bikes from them as well. After a smooth 45 minute ride we arrived at the island. We headed down the road.

The coastline is quite nice, with rolling hills and lots of small bays. It was pretty breezy as well.

Here's Susanne and me (the lopsided one)

The island was called Rottnest by the Dutch but it isn't inhabited by rats, but rather by a cool little critter, the quogga

Here's one

and here are two - they are very used to people (and being fed, I bet) and these guys were hanging out by a picnic table; obviously highly intelligent animals - Yogi Bear class!

We also ran across an osprey nest on a rock just offshore and later saw the osprey on the wing.

Our goal was Green Island, a wildlife sanctuary with an offshore island to provide a bit of shelter.

We had brought snorkel gear and although the water was in the 'you'll get used to it' category, we had a very pleasant swim. Underwater it was mostly seagrass and some nice sized fish. Quite pretty, but I decided not to pack my gopro this trip. I figured I would miss it maybe once or twice and this is definitely one of those times. Just one of those tough calls to try and keep the luggage under control.

After a swim we warmed up on the beach - unfortunately we spent a bit too much time so we were at some risk of missing the last ferry off the island. We started heading back and I suggested we take a shortcut across the island. Miracle of miracles, it actually turned out to be an excellent guess and we made it back with a bit of time to spare. Off on the boat back to Perth and another mighty fine day.