Bart Bear's Blog

Here are two of the most embarrassing moments of my stay in Perth. In the foyer of Crown Towers there are two things that look like huge slabs of gold. I was trying to get a scrap of material off this one so that I could test it and see if it was real or not when I was grabbed and taken outside to the lion. He didn't look very fierce and wasn't moving at all so I thought he would be friendly. No way! As soon as I was feeling like he might be a new friend he moved like the Flash and quick as a wink I was in his mouth. Fortunately, the Oldies were nearby and Dad snatched me out of the mouth before the jaws closed. I still don't know if that's really gold in the foyer. Mum just laughs when I ask her and wants to know how I was planning on taking it home if it was real.

Labels: Perth, Western Australia

Our cruise up the Swan River took us to Sandalford winery. As you can see from the photo of their award wall, this is one of the best-rated wineries in Australia. Our only problem was that we arrived soaking wet from the trip between the wharf and the winery. A large golf buggy was there to take us, but it had no side curtains and we got soaked anyway. Fortunately, there was a fire going in one of the dining rooms and we were able to steam ourselves dry. Near the fireplace were 2 large candle stands. These looked like something out of Frankenstein's castle as the melted candle wax had been allowed to drip down and form fascinating patterns as it solidified. Before lunch was served we had a lesson in the art of wine tasting. There were 6 samples and the idea was to test and rank them. Mum did OK, but Dad's idea of wine tasting is to raise the glass and gulp the contents. Actually, Sandalford wines are pretty good. There is, of course, a large cellar door shop and we left loaded down with wine "gadgets", presents for family and friends. Is the Sandalford cruise worth it? Too right, even in bad weather.

Labels: Perth, Western Australia

During our stay in Perth we took a cruise up the Swan River to Sandalford winery. Our boat was Captain Cook Cruises' "River Lady". Like nearly all the vessels that go upriver from Perth, she is built low to fit under some of the bridges. In fact, at a really high tide there is one bridge that she has to wait at for the river level to drop. The weather on the day of our cruise was terrible - heavy rain and gusty strong winds. The map tells the story, Perth is right under the densest part. The weather system stayed pretty much the same all day. Anyhow, I had fun. The captain was a lady named Catherine. I called her Cap'n Cat and she let he help drive. I worked the throttles while we were clearing the dock, and did a lot of the steering when we were on our way upriver. How does a small bear steer when the wheel is so big that I can't reach all the handles? I just jump on the appropriate handle of the wheel until the boat is aimed in the right direction. As this was a winery cruise, we had wine tasting on the way. I managed to get a small taste of Mum's samples; 4 whites and 4 reds. I think whites are much nicer, but reckon that the ones from Marlborough in New Zealand are the best. Mind you, we tasted some really good wines later during our road trip in the Margaret River region south of Perth. We met some wonderful cheeses as well. One was so good that the Oldies bought a Kilogram back with them; it didn't last long. If you have a free day in Perth, this winery cruise is well worth doing, regardless of the weather.

Labels: boats, cruising, Perth, Western Australia

As some of you noticed, I have been away for a couple of weeks; thanks for your emails asking if I was OK. Nothing bad had happened, I was in Western Australia. The Oldies decided to see a bit of Australia that was new to them, the south-western bit of WA. Naturally, this corner of the continent has many wineries and some lighthouses. That seems to be the way that the Oldies plan itineraries these days. It takes 4 hours to fly to Perth (I used to call it Perf when I was younger) so the Oldies decided to use all our frequent flyer points and go business class. We had great flights over and back in this aeroplane. For a couple of days at the start and end of the trip we stayed at Crown Towers in Perth. Big brother Trent managed to get us a special deal there and we stayed on the second floor from the top. We had great views over the city, but the weather turned bad for most of our stay and I couldn't try out the pools; I guess Mum wouldn't let me anyhow, she has this thing about me getting wet. Despite the rain and wind, we saw 3 amazing lighthouses and visited some superb wineries.

Labels: aircraft, Perth, Western Australia

As long-term readers know, I don't like crabs and things that look like crabs. It's not that I am scared of them, I just don't want to be anywhere near them. The Oldies say that that is not a good thing, because we all like beaches and rock pools and sea-side things and that is where crustaceans live. Fine, just as long as the Oldies are there to keep the horrible critters away from me. So, you may think that this photo is a bit strange. Here I am, sitting next to crab and lobster pots, with a huge lobster climbing out behind my back. Don't worry, I haven't lost my strong sense of self-preservation. This is actually a display about the Western Australian fishing industry and the crabs and lobsters are only model ones. It is in the WA Maritime Museum, somewhere you should visit if you are ever in Fremantle. I can assure you that I would never get this close to real lobsters, but the photo is good for bragging rights when I am showing travel pictures to other small critters who don't know the story.

Labels: crabs, Perth, Western Australia

One thing that small bears are NOT known for is their patience. Why do we always have to wait until somebody else decides it is time to do something. I mean, just look at this. The QM2 is there, just waiting for passengers to board. The Oldies, Scruffy, Milkshake and I are all here at the terminal, just waiting for our group number to be called. Why do we have to wait? They even have this grid gate up to stop me getting on before they think it is time. Actually, I could have climbed through the gate and sneaked on, but Mum told me that there was no use doing that because she had the boarding passes. The Oldies sat around, talked to people they had just met, and soaked up cool drinks, but I stayed out there rattling the gate until we were called to go on board. And guess what, I was hanging onto the wrong gate!!

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

Here's the "Queen Mary 2" docked in Fremantle harbour. She has just arrived and has a 4 hour wait before the Oldies take me aboard. To give you an idea of the size of her, the dock is over 1.5 km long. There are some interesting craft moored at the dock. The small boat in the foreground is one of the Pilot boats that met the QM2 and put the pilot aboard before she entered harbour. The sailing ship behind the pilot boat is the "Leeuwin II", Australia's largest sail training ship. The warship is USS "Shoup", a guided missile destroyer. Shoup was in Fremantle for a rest break after a period of counter-piracy operations off the coast of Africa. I love harbours, there is always something interesting to see. And it's even more interesting when the biggest ship in port is there to take you cruising.

Labels: boats, cruising, Perth, Western Australia

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

There is only one problem in travelling with Scruffy. He insists that as he is the older bear, he should get the window seat. Now you might think that there is enough room at the normal-sized window for two small bears, but there's not when both of them bounce and fidget. Fortunately, this was not a problem on the longest trip we have done so far. The trip across Australia on the Indian-Pacific took three days and I feared that I would have a three-day fight for the window seat, but it turned out great. The Oldies splurged and got the Deluxe cabin. This is about twice the size of a standard cabin and has a lounge area as well as the usual bed. And two windows, one for each bear. We were able to see everything and only had to move at meal times. This picture was taken near the start of the trip as the train was zooming through the Blue Mountains. It got foggy soon after so we left the windows and explored the rest of the cabin, but were back as soon as the fog cleared.

Labels: Perth, Sydney, train

Here's what happens if you don't keep a good lookout when you are at sea. This boat didn't and it ran aground on Rottnest Island. I am not sure just what ship it was, or when it was wrecked. There are lots of wrecks around Rottnest and I didn't take enough notes to help identify this one. It looks like the sort of place where the Oldies would like to snorkel, because fish use these old wrecks (the ships, not the Oldies) as places to live in.

Labels: boats, Perth, Western Australia

This big glass tower is near the Barrack St wharf in Perf. It is a bell tower and has sixteen bells in it, one of the largest set of bells in the world. The tower is really just one big musical instrument, big enough to walk around inside. Twelve of the bells come from the church of St Martin in the Fields, in Trafalgar Square in London. They were given to Western Australia for the Australian Bicentenary in 1988. The tower is nearly 83 metres tall and you can go inside it to see the bells and find out how they are played. The bell room is high up in the tower and you get good views of Perf from there. Just about every time we were at the wharf the bells were ringing. They sound great, but I couldn't have a go at ringing them because my paws couldn't reach the controls.

Labels: Perth, Western Australia

Here's a boat that has been in the news a lot here in Australia. It is the Customs and Fisheries vessell "Oceanic Viking". Its job is to keep foreign poachers from stealing Australia's fish and to catch smugglers. We hear about it occasionally catching fishermen who are over-fishing and are catching things like the rare Toothfish. The "Viking" was on TV almost every night a few weeks ago because it had been caught up in an embarassing international problem. It had picked up a sinking load of boat people, who were trying to sneak into Australia illegally, and then couldn't find anywhere to unload them. They had come via Indonesia, but Indonesia didn't want them, and they didn't want to go back to where they had come from. It took weeks before the Australian and Indonesian governments sorted the problem out, and all that time the "Viking" was stuck off Indonesia with a load of passengers nobody wanted. I don't understand why people try to sneak into Australia like that. If they just go about it the right way, through the proper channels, they can usually come anyway, provided they aren't criminals or terrorists or other nasty types. Scruffy and I saw the "Oceanic Viking" earlier this year on our way from Perf to Rottnest Island. It was berthed in Fremantle harbour, being stocked up for a patrol in the cold ocean between Australia and Antarctica.

Labels: boats, Perth, Western Australia

This is the main lighthouse on Rottnest Island, near Fremantle in Western Australia. It is called Wadjemup Light after the local Aboriginal name for Rottnest Island. There has been a lighthouse here since 1851. The first one was built by aboriginal convicts, using local stone, and it was the first stone lighthouse in Western Australia. This one, also built of local limestone and twice the size of the old one, was built in 1896. All that remains of the first lighthouse is a small shed next to the new one. It must have been a hard place to live back when the lighthouse was new, because the first three lighthouse keepers all committed suicide.
We saw the Wadjemup lighthouse on a bus trip around Rottnest during our visit to Perf back in March. The bus didn't stop, it just drove past slowly, so Mum didn't have time to take the gazillions of pictures she normally takes of every light we visit. However, she did manage to get something different in one of the pix; if you click on the picture to make it bigger you can see an aeroplane flying over to the left of the lighthouse. Our lighthouse count is now at 82, nearly 100 if you count the ones that the Oldies saw overseas, but I won't let them include them as there were no small bears present to confirm the sightings.

Labels: lighthouse, Perth, Western Australia

At the Fishing Boat Harbour in Fremantle there is a street lined with lots of anchors. The anchors were mostly dredged up from the sea bottom while the harbour was being widened and deepened, and are from ships that got stuck and had to cut the anchor line to get free. There are lots of different types of anchors there and Dad was all excited explaining how they worked and what sort of ships would have lost them. Scruffy and I had a better use for them. Anchors make great climbing frames for small bears. The only downside to anchor climbing is that they sometimes leave dust, rust and grease on fur and Mum gets a bit stroppy with us, but that doesn't stop us doing it whenever she is looking the other way. The other side of the road is full of the biggest fish-and-chip shops I have ever seen. The oldies say the tucker is good, but small bears aren't allowed near f+c because they (the f+c) are greasy. Sometimes I think there is a conspiracy to keep us away from interesting food.

Labels: climbing, Perth, Western Australia

These two lighthouses mark the entrance into Fremantle Harbour in Western Australia. We saw them a couple of times during our trip to Perf because the river cruise boats stop in the harbour, and the boat to Rottnest Is goes past them. They are right at the end of the breakwalls that keep the Swan River mouth calm, one on each side. The breakwalls are called "moles"; I can't understand why because all the moles I know are small little critters that live underground. Anyhow, these lighthouses have been there since the harbour was finally completed in 1903. They are coloured red and green, red for port (left) and green for starboard (right) so that ships coming into the river know what side is what (I think it would be funny to see one get confused and come in the wrong way around). During the war Fremantle was an important naval base. It had one of the biggest submarine bases in the world. The concrete building at the base of the green lighthouse is the remains of a WWII observation post. These days Fremantle is a very busy harbour with lots of huge container ships, livestock transports, cruise boats and river ferrys (some of which carry small bears on holiday).

Labels: lighthouse, Perth, Western Australia

Here's a different sort of clock that Scruffy and I found in a park in Perf. It is in the middle of a garden in Kings Park and the numbers and other bits of the clock, apart from the hands and drive, are made with flower beds. It looks pretty but small bears have a problem with it. The only way we can read the thing is to get up high and if there is no Oldie around to help then we just have to climb. In this case that means the fence and that was a bit dangerous because it was a windy day and Scruff kept being blown down into the bushes. Actually, the most interesting thing to me was the little house behind the clock. It looks just the right size for a family of bears and I know a story that says that small houses like this catch silly blonde girls when the bears are away. I wanted to see if we could trap one but Dad pointed out that we were one bear short; I knew we should have bought Sammisch with us.

Labels: Perth, Western Australia

One of the places we visited in Perf was a huge bead shop. It is called The Bead Company and it is in a suburb called Osbourne Park. The shop is huge (compared to small bears) and has walls and display cases absolutely jam-packed with beads and crystals of all types and colours. Mum spent a couple of hours there, stocking up on stuff that she can't get in Canberra. I spent my time climbing the shelves. A real indoor climbing wall, just the right size for me. I managed to get right to the top in several places and didn't knock even one jar off the shelf, although I scared one of the shop girls and she dropped one. Mum and I have been busy making things with the beads since we got back, I might show you some of them later.

Labels: beads, climbing, Perth, Western Australia

This just may be the highest spot on the Nullarbor plain. It is a pile of big rocks in the centre of Cook, the railway town on the trans-Australia line. Scruffy and I found it when the Indian-Pacific stopped here for a while on the way to Perf. All the country you can see around Cook, for hundreds of miles actually, is absolutely flat, so I figure that climbing this rockpile puts us in the same class as Hillary and Tenzing, conquerors of the highest peak. The big bare sandy area around the rockpile is one of the main streets of Cook. It runs from the aerodrome to the hospital and when the hospital was in use the Flying Doctor could taxi his aeroplane right up to the hospital door. Although my rockpile is the highest peak, you can't actually see much from it. Some of the only trees in the whole of the Nullarbor have been planted around it. Anyhow, lizards, snakes and small bears all appreciate it because they can sit up there quietly and soak up sun while the rest of the trainload of tourists run around madly taking pictures.

Labels: climbing, Perth, South Australia, train

One of the things we did in Perf was to go on a boat trip up the Swan River to a winery. The Oldies liked this trip because it had lunch included as well and there were prawns for Mum and curries for Dad. Plus as much wine as they could drink (and they are pretty good at putting good wine away). It really doesn't take much to keep my Oldies happy. The boat was a bit different to others Scruffy and I have been on. It was very low so that it could get under the bridges it had to go under. Just a big aluminium punt really. The trip went past lots of big houses, most of them with boats tied up at private wharves. The winery was called "Waters Edge". Not because it was actually at the water's edge, even though it was. It was because the first people to own it were called Waters. The boat passengers were shown around the winery and were able to sample everything. The wines were (reportedly) great and the Oldies even bought some special Port. It was just as well it was downhill to the boat because lots of passengers couldn't walk all that straight on the way back. Maybe that was why the captain let Scruff and I drive on the way downriver; we were the most sober passengers on board. With Scruff navigating and working the throttles, and yours truly at the wheel we got back to Barrack St jetty right on schedule. Small bears to the rescue again.

Labels: boats, Perth, Western Australia

While we were in Perf we used the buses to get around. They have a wonderful system over there. Bus travel in the main part of the city is totally free. Naturally enough, Dad really liked that as an idea and says it should be done everywhere. The buses that go around the central city are called Central Area Transport buses, or CAT buses for short. Just so you can tell them from other buses they have big cats painted on their sides. The first one that I saw was in evening twilight and all I saw at first was this big black cat zooming towards me . Until I realized the white background was a bus I was a bit worried. A cat that size would make short work of small bears.

Labels: cars and trucks, Perth, Western Australia