Bart Bear's Blog

Last week was one of the most exciting ones ever. We flew across to Perf (for new readers, Bart refuses to say Perth) to go on board the "Queen Mary 2" and sail back to Sydney. Because Mum has this thing about luggage getting lost, we went across a day early and stayed overnight in Fremantle, the port for Perf. Freo was very hot and the Oldies didn't like that much. However, there are a few very interesting museums there. One of them is the West Australian Maritime Museum, and it is built right on the water's edge near the entry to the port. The QM2 was supposed to be in port around 7am on the day we were leaving, but it had some engine trouble and arrived at mid-day. That was great for us because we were at the museum and were able to go outside to the boardwalk and watch her come in. What a huge ship! It is 345 metres long and 72 metres high. It dwarfs all the other ships in port and makes the dockyard buildings look tiny. In the background you can see the green lighthouse at the end of the south breakwall; you can see a bigger photo of it in an earlier posting. There were hundreds of people watching the ship arrive but they made space for me to see. As soon as it had docked we hurried back into town for lunch and to get things packed ready to go down to the terminal and board ship. The ship had a full load, so there were 2,620 passengers to sort out; offloading for shore excursions, offloading the ones leaving at Fremantle, getting the excursionists reloaded, and finally getting us new passengers loaded. It looked chaotic but went very smoothly. As for the week at sea, more in following postings.

Labels: boats, cruising, lighthouse, Perth, Western Australia