Jen and Jerry's Excellent Adventure

 It’s MELbuhn to all who pronounce it correctly, and this second-largest city on the continent is modern, exciting, popular and in total competition with Sydney in every imaginable sport and topic and population. We were here on Sunday and Monday, it’s already summer break for schools AND the holidays, so the streets, trams, and popular spots to view Christmas window decorations were bustling or had long lines of excited young families. Oh, and it is repeatedly voted one of the top 10 Most Live- able Cities in the World. We can now see why. Sunday, we had a tour, so our bus took us into the fray. After driving through the restored financial district, the sporting complexes, and art communities, after gawking at the wide streets that are manicured and tree-lined, after enjoying a snarky guide, we visited their main historical museum. I told a nearby docent that it’s the BEST museum I’ve seen in any around the world. She had tears. We had time only to visit the First People exhibit and t

What a fun place to visit and a potential place to return. Someday. This island is not far off the coast from Adelaide. Its welcoming beaches and more shallow water kept our cruise ship offshore, so we tendered to shore again. If you find a website for this island, it is described with adjectives like unfiltered, unpretentious, and untamed. I’d agree. It’s not all dressed up for tourists. There are handicraft artists on the island, and they set up in open spaces individually or as a sort of farmer’s market, but it seems like the island tries to maintain a remoteness that is a magnet for off-the-beaten-track adventurers. There are plenty of choices for land or water excitement including wildlife in both terrains. What brought early settlers here was the abundance of springs and potable water. We left the ship an hour or so before we were to meet our tour on the shore to enjoy a walkabout. This small port is a working port with lines of vehicles waiting to board the ferry to the mainland

 Jen writes: Because of my fall yesterday, Jerry and I had a taxi ride to the ER at 8:30 am, as soon as the ship docked, while everyone else had a “normal” cruise day. In my hand was clutched an important envelope from the cruise ship medical center that needed a doctor’s signature that would allow me to re-board the ship. (Yup, this means that if the doctor determined my injury too severe, Jerry would pack our bags for us and we’d get sent home.) Trying not to panic, we pumped the taxi driver for information about the city as that’s all we’d get for the day for this blog. Turns out that in the past 10 years, the population of this Western Australian town has doubled mostly due to climate. Along the coast, this city maintains a nearly year-round temperature of about 78 degrees. Mmmm. Tempting. We were also informed of an area of psychology called climate psych which has determined that the best temperature for humans is right around this temperature. My first experience with Australian

Busselton is in Western Australia and is a smaller town with a loooooong jetty which is its biggest claim to fame. While many others took tours an hour or more inland to some wine areas, we chose to stay in town to view the mile-long jetty and its treasures. There is excitement in this face... The jetty and train: Just over a mile long, the jetty extends over the protected waters of Geographe Bay (not a typo). Some resources say that it is the longest wooden-piled jetty in the Southern Hemisphere. Originally built for the lumber industry, in April 1978, a cyclone wiped out part of it. It took years and years to garner money for repair, but now a solar-powered Jetty Train takes you across the ocean. You can ride the train or walk the distance along with fisherman carrying long rods and snaring their catch and welcoming. Along the jetty are at least two open sinks with places to wash and filet the catches right there. Black stains on the jetty indicate that the squid catches are frequent

Awake early to take the train into Perth, capital city of the huge state of WA (Western Australia) not really knowing the train schedule. Looking lost as we arrived at the station a worker came out of the booth to help us with tickets. There is a big advantage to traveling in English speaking countries. Round trip tickets into Perth were $3 apiece. The train line is a dedicated line with Freemantle at one end and Perth central station at the other end. It is about a 30- minute ride. They cancelled the line for five years in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It was fought and even became a political hot potato and was reinstated after the five-year absence. It was comfortable, not crowded, and got us to the center of Perth with ease. We decided on the hop-on-hop-off bus and found its first pick-up spot fairly close to the station. We walked to the spot and caught the first stop of the day. Look at the bar above the driver's head, this shows the number of languages for choice on listenin

If you are following on a map you will see that Fremantle is actually a part of Perth on the west coast of Australia similar to the geography of the Quad Cities in Iowa. We had an overnight in this port so we chose to visit Fremantle on day one and Perth on day two. There was a shuttle into Fremantle provided by the ship. We decided that would be a great way to start so we waited until 9:30 and headed out. We got on the pier and with the wind in the shade realized that a short-sleeved shirt would not be enough causing Jerry to make a mad dash back to the room to get a fleece. Total change from the whole east coast of Australia experienced 40 degree temps several weeks ago. Celsius, not Fahrenheit. That’s over 100. We have experienced mid-80s and recently low 60’s with wind in the morning. Great days for sightseeing as the day warms up. Jerry made it back and we went into town with friends, Jerry and Bonnie. Our first stop turned out to be the indoor market. Seems to be the place to go