Australia - 26 - Fremantle & Perth

Tuesday, 25 April 2023

The seas eased somewhat overnight, but the heavy-going had our ship running about an hour behind schedule. After 10 days of remote travel, docking at Fremantle Harbour and going into Perth was a huge change!

Another early day - but the sunrise behind Perth was quite nice!

Breakfast was filled with rainbows - even a full-arc double.

Is this ore ship carrying gold from the end of the rainbow?

April 25 is ANZAC Day - a huge day of remembrance and commemoration for all who served in the armed forces in Australia and New Zealand. It was originally set up to honor the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who served in the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, their first engagement in World War I. Starting with a sunrise memorial service, it's a solemn occasion as if the U.S.'s Memorial Day and Veterans Day were combined. Every town has a parade, and we watched the parade in Fremantle, where every naval ship docked there sent a unit to the parade.

After the parade was over, we had a Perth city tour, including a short time on Cottesloe Beach.

Before ending at a downtown hotel where we were able to have some refreshments and wait for our transfers to the airport, we had about 45 minutes in Kings Park and Botanic Garden. These are Rainbow Lorikeets (a type of parrot) eating palm berries in the park.

Red-flowering gum (Corymbia ficifolia). Fortunately, just about everything in a botanic garden is labeled!

Another interesting flower in the botanic garden, Grevillia.

In the afternoon we flew to Perth for a morning flight back to Los Angeles and on to Washington, DC (Dulles Airport). But our flight was delayed for 24 hours because it had detoured to Honolulu to handle a medical emergency. We gained back our day - landing in L.A. "3 hours" before we took off (after a 15-hour flight!) on Thursday, 27 April.

All in all, a great trip! We plan on going back "Down Under" to see New Zealand, Tasmania, and few more places in Australia.