23 September 2005 (Day 18 – Perth to Adelaide)
Today was our last day out West. We spent the morning re-packing everything and were finally out the door just after 10am and piling into one very heavily laden Corolla.
Our first stop was at a packaging/courier place we had noticed earlier – once we had gone the long way around the block looking for parking in Fremantle’s network of one-way streets. We left our Margaret River wines in good hands (we hope) to be trucked back to Sydney and went on to pay Daniel’s speeding fine at the post office. The trainee clerk had some trouble working out what to do but it finally processed, or at least we have the receipt to prove that we tried! Finally we crossed the road to the Fremantle Airport Shuttle office to find out about getting to the airport for our afternoon flight to Adelaide.
We now had about 2 hours or so left before we had to return the car and head for the airport so we drove into Perth to visit the Perth Mint. This was our first time driving through the city of Perth CBD. We had noticed when we arrived in the shuttle bus how few skyscrapers there are compared to Sydney and Melbourne, and this was emphasised when we drove down St Georges Terrace. Because there are comparatively few very tall buildings the city feels so open.
We were able to get street parking immediately outside the Mint, fed the parking meter and found that a tour of the Mint was just about to start. The Perth Mint was completed just before the turn of the century, as a branch of the British Royal Mint, to process the gold from the WA goldfields instead of having to travel to the mints in Melbourne or Sydney. The Mint is still in operation, and is Australia’s biggest gold refiner as well as producing commemorative coins and other things such as the Sydney 2000 Olympics medals. Official coinage is produced by the Commonwealth Mint in Canberra.
We joined the tour, which was fairly brief, then went on to have a look around. One of the things on offer is to have a gold plated coin engraved with a special message or to mark your visit, so we had one engraved to mark the WA leg of our honeymoon. Then it was time for the demonstration gold pour. This is held in the original melting room of the Mint. The show is quite spectacular. The pourer, John, dimmed the lights so that the big, high room with its smokey tin ceiling is lit only by the gas furnace which was melting the gold to 1350°C. John raised the kiln lid and lifted out the crucible, using long heavy tongs, and placed it on the table next to the lead mould. The crucible was glowing red with heat. He switched to another set of tongs and tilted the crucible to pour a stream of glowing molten gold into the mould. He moved the crucible to sit next to the kiln, where we could hear it cracking as it slowly changed colour from bright red, through to a duller red and finally back to a shiny black as it cooled. meantime John plunged the mould into cold water to cool the gold and, only a few minutes after pouring the molten gold, he turned out a shiny bar cool enough to handle.
After the Mint we retrieved the car before any traffic wardens noticed the meter had expired and, after a few wrong turns (more one way streets!) we were charging back to Fremantle. We had been in Fremantle for four days and hadn’t had fish and chips, so detoured to the Harbour where Daniel waited in the car whilst Helen raced in to Kailis’ to order take away fish and chips. We then had an anxious drive back to the car rental outlet, as the shuttle bus was supposed to pick us up from there at 2.30 and it was past that when we eventually got the car back. Daniel lugged all our bags out whilst Helen raced in to look after the paper work. Luckily the shuttle bus hadn’t come yet.
We scoffed the fish and chips on the shuttle bus – not a very satisfactory lunch, as it had all got a bit cold and sweated in the plastic bag, and eating on the bus trying not to make a mess wasn’t the best way to enjoy it. Oh well.
We arrived at the airport with a 1½ hour wait for our flight. The terminal was full of West Coast supporters flying by any route possible to Melbourne for the Grand Final. We over heard one woman calling her children to laughingly tell them she and her husband were about to board a ‘plane and would be back on Monday and that she didn’t think she’d been so excited in all her life.’ Hope she enjoyed the game!
Helen got yet another window seat, and, as we were waiting to taxi out, by craning her neck glimpsed what looked like it could have been the sunset we had been waiting for – too late! As we were flying Qantas for this leg, our only Qantas flight of the trip, there was a light meal served. We were sitting the furthest towards the end of the plane that we had so far, so by the time the air crew got to us with our meals the only thing left was fish. It was pretty ordinary. Probably also because we were towards the end of the plane it seemed to take ages for the crew to clear our plates, at least compared to the Skywest flights, but then again they only had a maximum of 46 passengers to look after on the Foker 50s, and no business class! After they had cleared dinner the crew came around with chocolate Trumpeter ice creams (like a Corneto), an unexpected and nice touch.
We finally arrived in Adelaide at 10.10pm local time, or 8.40pm WA time. We hadn’t got around to figuring out how to get from the airport to our hotel, so decided to just take a taxi, which luckily wasn’t too expensive and took us down part of North Terrace. The glimpses of historic buildings lit up in the night looked pretty good.
We had booked an internet special rate at the Hotel Adelaide International, on the fringe of North Adelaide. When we got out of the lift on level 4 we realised that our room was in the dark, unlit portion of the hallway – there was a 4-way light fitting immediately above our door but it wasn’t on and Daniel couldn’t find a light switch anywhere down the hall. Luckily there was enough light from the nearest working light for it not to be too much of a problem once we had worked out which room was ours, but it was a bit disconcerting.
Inside the room was old but reasonably spacious, and again we had a view! This time our window looked out South over gardens and rooftops to the city of Adelaide proper. We could see the spires of St Peter’s Cathedral, the light towers for Adelaide Oval and the city buildings. Then Daniel turned on the TV – snow. Changed chanel. More snow and a great soundtrack if you find static calming. Given that tomorrow was the AFL Grand Final and the Sydney Swans were playing in it Daniel didn’t find the static calming at all. After a brief investigation he found the reason – the antenna fitting was broken.
Although it was nearing 11pm Adelaide time, it was still pretty early Perth time, so we went downstairs to see what there was to see. On the way we stopped at Reception to ask if the TV could be fixed. The clerk on duty looked about 16 and had to keep ducking back inside the office to ask about what could be done about our TV. He assured us that he would leave a message for Maintenance to fix it first thing the next morning.
Meanwhile Daniel had been chatting to the barman under the neon red “Cocktails” sign and found out that there was no food to be had at the hotel but there were a number of take-away places open late up the street as well as a 24hr bakery. We set out to investigate and ended up at the bakery where Daniel had a curry beef pie.
Back at the hotel we decided to have a cocktail. As we were making “mmmm” noises over their list and chatting to the barman about the game the next day (he was a Sydney man himself and had just got married on Anzac Day) the barman told us that he could also make other cocktails if we wanted something not on the list. We decided to ask for Brandy Alexanders, a classic cocktail and an old favourite. He asked how to make them. We couldn’t remember, as it is a while since we had a cocktail night, so he looked up his box of recipes. “Hmmm, that’s a lot of cream” he said. He pulled out a can of Dairy Whip. “This is the only cream I have.” We decided that a Brandy Alexander made with canned whipped cream was an experience we could do without and chose from the bar menu. After some time, a trip by the barman for a bottle of Baileys and a bowl full of savoury nibbles our cocktails were ready, a Banana Bender for Daniel and a Toblerone for Helen, topped with Dairy Whip.
We had a good chat with the barman about wines, things to do in Adelaide, how to get into the city and other touristy things. He explained that he didn’t normally work behind the bar, which explained things. He also explained that the hotel was only operating for another three weeks before it was going to close down and be converted into apartments, which explained a lot more.
Our first stop was at a packaging/courier place we had noticed earlier – once we had gone the long way around the block looking for parking in Fremantle’s network of one-way streets. We left our Margaret River wines in good hands (we hope) to be trucked back to Sydney and went on to pay Daniel’s speeding fine at the post office. The trainee clerk had some trouble working out what to do but it finally processed, or at least we have the receipt to prove that we tried! Finally we crossed the road to the Fremantle Airport Shuttle office to find out about getting to the airport for our afternoon flight to Adelaide.
We now had about 2 hours or so left before we had to return the car and head for the airport so we drove into Perth to visit the Perth Mint. This was our first time driving through the city of Perth CBD. We had noticed when we arrived in the shuttle bus how few skyscrapers there are compared to Sydney and Melbourne, and this was emphasised when we drove down St Georges Terrace. Because there are comparatively few very tall buildings the city feels so open.
We were able to get street parking immediately outside the Mint, fed the parking meter and found that a tour of the Mint was just about to start. The Perth Mint was completed just before the turn of the century, as a branch of the British Royal Mint, to process the gold from the WA goldfields instead of having to travel to the mints in Melbourne or Sydney. The Mint is still in operation, and is Australia’s biggest gold refiner as well as producing commemorative coins and other things such as the Sydney 2000 Olympics medals. Official coinage is produced by the Commonwealth Mint in Canberra.
We joined the tour, which was fairly brief, then went on to have a look around. One of the things on offer is to have a gold plated coin engraved with a special message or to mark your visit, so we had one engraved to mark the WA leg of our honeymoon. Then it was time for the demonstration gold pour. This is held in the original melting room of the Mint. The show is quite spectacular. The pourer, John, dimmed the lights so that the big, high room with its smokey tin ceiling is lit only by the gas furnace which was melting the gold to 1350°C. John raised the kiln lid and lifted out the crucible, using long heavy tongs, and placed it on the table next to the lead mould. The crucible was glowing red with heat. He switched to another set of tongs and tilted the crucible to pour a stream of glowing molten gold into the mould. He moved the crucible to sit next to the kiln, where we could hear it cracking as it slowly changed colour from bright red, through to a duller red and finally back to a shiny black as it cooled. meantime John plunged the mould into cold water to cool the gold and, only a few minutes after pouring the molten gold, he turned out a shiny bar cool enough to handle.
After the Mint we retrieved the car before any traffic wardens noticed the meter had expired and, after a few wrong turns (more one way streets!) we were charging back to Fremantle. We had been in Fremantle for four days and hadn’t had fish and chips, so detoured to the Harbour where Daniel waited in the car whilst Helen raced in to Kailis’ to order take away fish and chips. We then had an anxious drive back to the car rental outlet, as the shuttle bus was supposed to pick us up from there at 2.30 and it was past that when we eventually got the car back. Daniel lugged all our bags out whilst Helen raced in to look after the paper work. Luckily the shuttle bus hadn’t come yet.
We scoffed the fish and chips on the shuttle bus – not a very satisfactory lunch, as it had all got a bit cold and sweated in the plastic bag, and eating on the bus trying not to make a mess wasn’t the best way to enjoy it. Oh well.
We arrived at the airport with a 1½ hour wait for our flight. The terminal was full of West Coast supporters flying by any route possible to Melbourne for the Grand Final. We over heard one woman calling her children to laughingly tell them she and her husband were about to board a ‘plane and would be back on Monday and that she didn’t think she’d been so excited in all her life.’ Hope she enjoyed the game!
Helen got yet another window seat, and, as we were waiting to taxi out, by craning her neck glimpsed what looked like it could have been the sunset we had been waiting for – too late! As we were flying Qantas for this leg, our only Qantas flight of the trip, there was a light meal served. We were sitting the furthest towards the end of the plane that we had so far, so by the time the air crew got to us with our meals the only thing left was fish. It was pretty ordinary. Probably also because we were towards the end of the plane it seemed to take ages for the crew to clear our plates, at least compared to the Skywest flights, but then again they only had a maximum of 46 passengers to look after on the Foker 50s, and no business class! After they had cleared dinner the crew came around with chocolate Trumpeter ice creams (like a Corneto), an unexpected and nice touch.
We finally arrived in Adelaide at 10.10pm local time, or 8.40pm WA time. We hadn’t got around to figuring out how to get from the airport to our hotel, so decided to just take a taxi, which luckily wasn’t too expensive and took us down part of North Terrace. The glimpses of historic buildings lit up in the night looked pretty good.
We had booked an internet special rate at the Hotel Adelaide International, on the fringe of North Adelaide. When we got out of the lift on level 4 we realised that our room was in the dark, unlit portion of the hallway – there was a 4-way light fitting immediately above our door but it wasn’t on and Daniel couldn’t find a light switch anywhere down the hall. Luckily there was enough light from the nearest working light for it not to be too much of a problem once we had worked out which room was ours, but it was a bit disconcerting.
Inside the room was old but reasonably spacious, and again we had a view! This time our window looked out South over gardens and rooftops to the city of Adelaide proper. We could see the spires of St Peter’s Cathedral, the light towers for Adelaide Oval and the city buildings. Then Daniel turned on the TV – snow. Changed chanel. More snow and a great soundtrack if you find static calming. Given that tomorrow was the AFL Grand Final and the Sydney Swans were playing in it Daniel didn’t find the static calming at all. After a brief investigation he found the reason – the antenna fitting was broken.
Although it was nearing 11pm Adelaide time, it was still pretty early Perth time, so we went downstairs to see what there was to see. On the way we stopped at Reception to ask if the TV could be fixed. The clerk on duty looked about 16 and had to keep ducking back inside the office to ask about what could be done about our TV. He assured us that he would leave a message for Maintenance to fix it first thing the next morning.
Meanwhile Daniel had been chatting to the barman under the neon red “Cocktails” sign and found out that there was no food to be had at the hotel but there were a number of take-away places open late up the street as well as a 24hr bakery. We set out to investigate and ended up at the bakery where Daniel had a curry beef pie.
Back at the hotel we decided to have a cocktail. As we were making “mmmm” noises over their list and chatting to the barman about the game the next day (he was a Sydney man himself and had just got married on Anzac Day) the barman told us that he could also make other cocktails if we wanted something not on the list. We decided to ask for Brandy Alexanders, a classic cocktail and an old favourite. He asked how to make them. We couldn’t remember, as it is a while since we had a cocktail night, so he looked up his box of recipes. “Hmmm, that’s a lot of cream” he said. He pulled out a can of Dairy Whip. “This is the only cream I have.” We decided that a Brandy Alexander made with canned whipped cream was an experience we could do without and chose from the bar menu. After some time, a trip by the barman for a bottle of Baileys and a bowl full of savoury nibbles our cocktails were ready, a Banana Bender for Daniel and a Toblerone for Helen, topped with Dairy Whip.
We had a good chat with the barman about wines, things to do in Adelaide, how to get into the city and other touristy things. He explained that he didn’t normally work behind the bar, which explained things. He also explained that the hotel was only operating for another three weeks before it was going to close down and be converted into apartments, which explained a lot more.
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