Around the World (Again) Perth Botanical Gardens and Pica

Perth New Years Day, Botanical Garden and the PICA

I was early (for NEW YEAR) to bed, so was early to rise, it meant that after a quick breakfast, I was able to get out and get the free bus to the Botanical Garden, this is part of Kings Park, the largest inner city park in the world (Central Park eat your heart out).

The Botanical garden is different to most others that I have visited in that it lays great worth on preserving the original flora, so there is a great swath of vegetation that has been left in its original position and condition, (most others are cleared land that has been replanted with indigenous species). The bus driver (female) was most helpful telling us which was the best stop to get off at and where to catch the bus after we were finished with our visit.

I alighted and had a smashing panorama of the Swan River and the Perth Skyline.

I started at the Victoria memorial, with its frowning Empress guarded by 4 bronze cannons. The visitor centre was not yet open, but the gardening staff were already clearing up the litter from the new year revelries and carefully sweeping around the remnants of the New Year revellers from the area of the war memorial. 

 I had picked up a guide of the garden from the Hostel so knew a bit about it, I headed for the trail that takes you on the board walk and over the glass bridge above the trees (you saw it from the river on the Fremantle trip). This is the part of the garden that has been left in its own devices and it is nice to see it from a different perspective (above). You also get a wonderful view of the skyline and the Old Swan Brewery. You also get a view of the canning river as it joins the Swan to reach the Indian Ocean at Fremantle.

 

 Remains of a Parakeet's breakfast

Remember the Squashed Morton fig fruit in Adelaide well her is an un-squashed one in Perth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Marri gum trees can be seen weeping their sticky sap.

In Aboriginal culture the Marri tree plays a significant part, it is regarded as female and therefore protects and nurtures. The red gum seen oozing from its trunk (called kino) contains tannin which has antiseptic properties. It was dried and powdered and sprinkled on wounds to still the bleeding and sterilise the wound. It was added to various clays, mixed with water and taken as a cure for dysentery. It was mixed with water and used as a mouth wash and disinfectant.

Wandering through the shrubs and bushes so distained by the early settlers, it can be seen that most are intent on survival, having thorny thick water retaining leaves and being close to the ground to catch the morning dew, as a rule they have very colourful or heavily scented small flowers, that attract insects, needed for pollination. They are in the main of the family Grenvillia and come in all shapes and colours.

The early settlers hated them and cleared great tracts of land of these shrubs (they actually kept the thin layer of top-soil in place, but the settlers soon found this out) so that they could plant crops, both grain and root, the harvests were not good.

It was not until the development of chemical fertilisers and massive irrigation that the crop would produce a decent weald, until today WA has a large grain belt and has just had the best year in living memory.

I next visited a nice quiet section of the garden, very pleasant with a nice place to sit and reflect. At the head of the path there was a tree clothed in wonderful red blooms, the ground a carpet of vermillion.

 

 

 

I walked along the silent paths (not a murmur did those paths make), passing a few visitors as the park started to get other visitors. I took some photographs of the more "stranger" plants, one a with a disc shaped seed pod, another a small pod topped by a yellow flower and the sandpaper bush,the leaves you could have used as sandpaper they were that course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I crossed a lawn on the way to the water garden, at the bottom was a makeshift stage, they were doing Shakespeare in the park, it may well be worth a visit when I return to Perth to fly to Bangkok.

  

The water feature of the Botanical Garden

 The ponds, cascades and babbling brooks were full of large blue dragonflies, zigging and zagging across the water in their pursuit of the opposite sex with only one thing in mind.

The greens and the lawns were now filling up with families with running, playing kids, they were out for the 1^st of Jan picnic, it was time for me to leave. I walked through the Banksia garden, named after the botanist that was on Cooks Voyage and after became head botanist with the UK Government, Sir Joseph Banks. Also passed the statue of the founder of theses gardens aptly named Forrest.

I passed the double bottle tree, took some a photo of these flowers for no other reason than they looked very pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

 and returned to the Queen Vic to catch the bus back into town.

I alighted at the stop beside Government house, this is opposite the Cathedral, so I took the time to pop in and see what was to be seen.

I next headed towards the PICA, but had to pass a Japanese restaurant, so I took the opportunity and had lunch, Miso Soup and a chicken with seaweed in broth, very tasty and as cheap as chips (well they didn’t sell chips).

So it was next across the bridge and into the Perth Institute for Contemporary Art.  

The thread running through the exhibition was string (sorry about the pun), I will leave you to enjoy these works of Aboriginal origins. I found them very pleasant and a wonderful display of original thinking, very colourful and well executed contemporary art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On my last day in Perth before heading of down the coast for a bit of peace and tranquillity, I had an interesting conversation with a chap who lived in Sydney but was originally from North China (near to the Mongolian Border I believe) and he was complaining about the China Town in Perth. I said I hadn’t seen it, to which he replied no wonder it is so small that if you blink you shall miss it, he then described the area to find it. I thought funny I had walked that way on my first day in Perth.

So I set off down James street to see if I could discover this mythical China Town, right to the bottom, he has said it backed onto the railway lines from the station, so I swung a sharp left and walked along Roe street, I found it, it is a shabby  dismal place that takes up one block, the best thing about it is the gate. He was right! Terrible in fact most of the few restaurants were closed. Perth has a far better offering of Chinese food on James Street and William Street, why they had to try and build a separate China Town I shall never know. This must be the worst in the WORLD:

I visited the railways station to see which platform my train would leave from as I had to go to Perth East to catch my bus on my next stage to Bunbury.

I then returned to William street where I had found a nice café/restaurant were you could sit out with a glass of wine and watch the world go by. I went in and there seated on a veranda was a fellow wanderer, David, a retired American teacher who was doing a similar thing to me and just taking it easy and floating around Australia, he was 69 years of age and our paths had crossed on Kangaroo Island, Adelaide and now Perth. We sat and drank a Shiraz together and chewed the fat a bit, commenting on a well laden Back Packer moving house.

So Next day it was off to the Station and onwards towards Bunbury, catch you all there!