The jewels of Western Australia

When Celebrity said that we would be going to Perth, only to find out that we would actually be docking in a place called Fremantle, 30 minutes to the south, we thought great, another crummy little port town where we will look out over ship yards and shipping containers.  In reality, Fremantle turned out to be among the nicest small ports where we have ever docked.

Fremantle, as it turns out, is a real city onto its own, not merely a gateway to its larger neighbor to the north.  The Solstice docked close to the center of town, and adjacent to a rail station where trains ran every twenty minutes to Perth.  As we walked into downtown Fremantle, we found a town that has retained a certain charm dating back to the mid nineteenth century when it was founded.  City hall was in the dead center of town, and from there, like spokes on a bicycle wheel, the streets stretched out for several blocks.  The covered sidewalks made the town look a lot like the old gold mining towns of California, but instead of trying to create this feeling of going back into an old historic town, Fremantle is actually a thriving working city.  The colorful buildings in town house restaurants, grocery stores, pubs, offices, theaters, and the various types of shops that nowadays you find mostly in suburbs and strip malls.   The cafes and restaurants that spilled onto the sidewalks were crowded and alive, providing an energetic vibe in a town otherwise might have seemed quaint and cerebral.

The old Fremantle market which stretches over two city blocks is a maze of specialty food shops. It is an open air market (open daily) where you can buy everything from fresh fruits and vegetables, a huge selection of cheeses, meats and salamis, specialty breads and pastries to several varieties of paella simmering in large cooking vats.   And here, street musicians looking for donations don't strum guitars ... they play didgeridoos and violins.

Fremantle provides free public transportation throughout the city, and free high speed WiFi throughout the central core of town.  It's like a contemporary city caught in a time warp.   With a Mediterranean climate (it was about 95 degrees and sunny while we sere there) we actually said that it is a place where we could live.  Except, again, like every town here, it is very expensive, with food costing two to three times as much as it is in the US and Mexico ($4.50 for a small Coke at a sidewalk cafe).

After the morning in Fremantle, we hopped the train for the ride into Perth.   During the thirty minutes on board, we passed through really cool ocean communities, with long white sandy beaches, surfers and wind surfers.   The stations where we stopped all looked amazingly clean and modern, and soon the train was packed with passengers, mostly students who attend private high schools outside of Perth and who were heading home after a day of classes.

Like in Europe, the train station in Perth was in the center of the huge metropolitan city, a city that reminded me of a cross between Portland, Oregon; Sacramento, California; and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Perth is the financial and commercial hub for Western Australia, a city filled with high rises, and giant shopping centers.   Unlike many American cities where suburban malls have zapped the strength and viability of urban centers, Perth is very much alive.   We took a public bus (again, free transportation in the city core) to King's Park, which is a beautifully manicured park overlooking the city and the river on which it was built.  With Perth serving a a strategic outpost during World War II, there are many monuments here honoring those who lost their lives.  There is also a large memorial from the US recognizing the "unbreakable bond" between the two countries.

With temperatures just shy of 100, by late afternoon we had had enough touring and caught the train back to Fremantle, where a swim in the pool was very welcome.

Australian oddity:   In large and medium size cities throughout the country, there is a chain store that looks very familiar to Americans.  It is Target, but there is something different about it than the Targets we are used to in the US.  First, the logo is a bit askew, and when you go into an Australian Target, it looks more like a Kmart than the more upscale Targets we are used to.  An Aussie told us that several years ago, "Target" opened here, and almost immediately the Minneapolis based Target sued them.   There was some sort of a settlement, but in the end, the US Target allowed the Australian Target to retain the name, even though the stores here are an inferior replica of the US stores.