Drunken Wrecks

  Perth, Australia
Thursday, December 21, 2006

Three utterly useless facts about Perth - 1) It's got more private boats registered in it than any other city in the world - around 100,000 2) It's got more shoreline than any other city in the world (cheating a bit here, as most of it's actually river!) and 3) it's the most remote city in the world, over 1,000 miles from the next closest city, Adelaide. That's quite impressive when you think about it.

Perth is also possibly the most laid back city I've ever been in - when I arrived the cab went through the centre of town at around 8.30am with absolutely no traffic - I asked the taxi driver where the rush hour was - he just laughed and said four cars at a set of lights constituted rush hour for Perth! Admittedly this was a bit of an exaggeration, but there's no doubt the people of Perth have it good. Glorious weather, helped by the Fremantle Doctor (a very cooling breeze that comes in from the sea), lovely scenery and miles o river and sea to play in. With the advent of cheap air fares in Oz, alongside the web, it's easy to see this place growing rapidly as it's isolation no longer counts against it.

In truth, though as a city, it's a little bit on the quiet side. Once the Barmy Army had left town, tranquillity seemed to re-assert itself  - the fact that the Burswood Complex is the town's major hotspot speaks volumes - with a nightclub for the younger population and a casino for everyone else (guess where I went!), it seems to be the centre of life for the city of an evening. As I came back to my hotel this evening (in the complex...) the queues to get into the car park match those of the car parks at the WACA before the cricket - the train I got here was packed and everyone seemed to get out at the Burswood station.
Fremantle, on the coast itself (Perth city centre is about 5 miles inland)is so laid back, it's virtually comatose - as far as I could see all it had was about 10 marina's, tons of restaurants and a University - very pleasant, but, I suspect mind-numbingly dull!  The ride down there on one of he main boats that shuttle back and forwards was lovely, and showed off some of the great houses on the river-bank. This one,

Nice Place

was recently sold for around $10 million (about £4m)to an Indonesian businessman. It's got it's own private beach and mooring - quite nice really!

Earlier in the week, I'd headed south towards the Margaret River wine region, for a bit of wine tasting and a bit of wreck diving, both of which proved great fun.

The HMAS Swan was an Australian cruiser that was purposely sunk around 10 years ago to create a top dive site in the southern region of Western Australia - lacking the famous Barrier Reef of Queensland, Western Australia has long struggled to make itself a destination for divers, which is a shame as it does posses some fantastic dive sites. Although I'd dived in Bali and will be spending three days aboard a dive boat on the reef next week, the chance to dive a wreck in as good a condition as this was too good an opportunity to ignore.

Measuring nearly 100 meters in length and 32 metres in height, the Swan is in great nick and as a dive site, great fun.

Spooky!

Unlike traditional reef diving, you don't dive a wreck to see marine life, though we did catch a glimpse of a Woebeong shark amongst other fish. No, the real reason for diving a wreck is to get inside the boat and experience the spooky feeling as you swim down flooded corridors. The wreck I'd dived in Bali, the Liberty has decomposed to such an extent that it's really only a skeleton of the ship it once was. However, the Swan is still in remarkably good condition - most of the structure remains intact and you can swim in and out of various passageways at will. There were some great sites along the way - the bridge,

The Bridge of the HMAS Swan

which retains the compass and the Captain's chair,  the laundry room, with a couple of washing machines and most amusingly the toilets,

The loo's

with the pristine bowls still sitting there - I didn't take the opportunity to use the facilities!! As an experience, it was certainly different and a little scary - some of the passageways are tight and you need to concentrate hard on moving in a straight and level line, lest you get caught on something - this isn't quite as easy as it seems, when you bear in mind that the sea has currents that do tend to knock you around a bit. Apologies for the quality of the pictures, but the light down there wasn't great and a lot of silt gets stirred up reducing further the camera's qualities

Slightly further down the coast, is the famous Margaret River wine region. Boasting over 100 estates it's still a region that is overshadowed by it's more illustrious countrymen near Adelaide. However, it's still a great region and although it only produces around 5% of Australia's wine output, it does produce about 30% of the premium wines. I paid a visit to the Leeuwin Estate, probably the biggest of the lot down here - I fear I might have upset the guide a bit, when I suggested their Brut (champagne in all but name) tasted rather like cider. The others in the group agreed with me and in fairness, even their info sheet suggested it had a hint of apples - to me sparkling booze tasting of apples is Cider and not worth £20 a bottle!! The rest of the wines were very good, especially their premium Shiraz, so if you fancy a decent red, this isn't a bad bet. It's slightly odd to be driving through Australian forests

Aussie vineyard

and to stumble upon loads of vineyards, but as the climate here is very similar to Bordeaux, congrats to the guy who thought of planting here first.   

About 100km south of Margaret River is Leeuwins Cape - allegedly the most southerly point of Australia, though looking at a map, I can't quite see how) It's also the point where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet - if you look carefully at the picture you won't be able to see any change in the colour of the seas at all!

Look very very carefully.....

However, this is now two of the three major meeting points of the world's oceans I've seen (Cape Point being the first). Hopefully when I reach Argentina I'll get down to Cape Horn, where the Southern meets the Atlantic and the Pacific, completing the set!

And now to Cairns, where I end, for about 3 weeks, the solus part of the trip. I meet Andy for some diving on the Barrier Reef and then down to Sydney where I hook up with my parents, culminating in a wine tour around Adelaide.

So, Merry Xmas to you all - for those of you wondering where I'll be, Andy and I are getting picked up at 6am on the 25th for a 4 hour boat ride out to the Barrier Reef - so I suspect it will be fish, not Turkey this year! I'll try and pen another blog before New Year's, but if not, have a great one!

Rob

PS Warne retires now!!! Why not 6 months ago - eh???? I'll be in Sydney for his last game so will make sure to give him a good send-off!!