Our Activities with our Family in Perth

We have been busy over the weekend doing a number of things with our family in Perth.

Saturday saw us going into the Perth Hills to visit a Cidery and enjoy a nice lunch at Core Cider’s Bistro.

We had arranged to meet everyone there but we overestimated the amount of travel time that we would need. (Many of the places that we are visiting are only around 40 minutes from the city.) Along the way, we saw a sign pointing to the ‘Perth Observatory’ so we detoured to see what might be there. We missed one of the directional signs at an intersection and got lost. We resorted to Google Maps which took us along a rather circuitous route through the forests and along some dirt roads. Eventually we found a locked gate and decided that while we had filled in some time, all the driving was not really worth the effort.

When we arrived at our destination at Core Cider, we realised that we had been there on a previous occasion. On that visit we didn’t have a lunch resevation but we managed to find an outdoor table on which we had pizza for lunch. This time, we were far more prepared with a reservation that enabled us to enjoy a two-course meal from the fixed price menu in the upstairs bistro. We looked over the extensive orchard as we ate and the cold cider was very enjoyable on a warm day. 

Before we departed, we snagged a group photo. The boys are certainly growing and it was nice to see Yuki again.

Perth has quite a stunning museum in a large and splendid building not far from our hotel. However, with Jill’s mobility, we decided to drive and park in the basement car park.

The main thing that we wanted to see was a special exhbition about the exploration of the moon.  It was full of interesting things and information. I might have guessed that from all the moon landings, some equipment might have been left on the moon’s surface. However, I wouldn’t have thought that it might have included several expensive Hasselblad cameras, various tools and ninety six bags of faeces, urine and vomit.

I vividly remember the day of the first moon landing on July 20, 1969. I was then a soldier in Vietnam. By some stroke of fortune, I was assigned to the CSM’s work party on that day and some of our tasks took place near our recreation hut. From time to time, we could go inside to see the grainy images on the black and white TV set with the signals coming from the American Armed Forces Television Network. I couldn’t believe that in the middle of a war, we could experience live stream images of this event. Perhaps today, that wouldn’t be seen to be anything special.

One of the most impressive exhibits was a piece of moon rock that had lain on the moon’s surafce undisturbed for hundreds of million years.

We finished the day with a quick visit to the WA Art Gallery which is in the same precinct as the museum. There were some interesting exhibits in its various galleries but I was somewhat surprised that there were no classical or traditional paintings on display or any Australian works by the major impressionists. Perhaps they are in a different gallery.

However, there was a large display of Aboriginal art that is quite fitting in this state.