G'Day!

OK, so I'm posting this from San Diego as we arrived home about 4 hours ago. Now I have a stable and fast internet connection! What is below is the Perth portion of the trip. I'll post the last few days in Sydney and the flight back tomorrow. Then you can all turn your computer off and get on with your lives. Sunday December 7, 2003 Today is a quiet day. I wash our clothes and work on my talk while Miranda visits Fremantle and its gaol. She sees more of our fellow train travelers. We have a late a la carte lunch at Miss Maud's, a Swedish restaurant which has Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner Smorgasbords. Miranda decides we have to return for a smorgasbord. Monday December 8, 2003 Today we decide to visit the Perth Mint. On the way there in the CAT, yes you guessed it, we meet more train travelers, this time it is the couple from York who are having a great time especially as their hotel suite is larger than their new flat. The Perth Mint produces a variety of collector coins and also made the medals for the Olympics held in Sydney in 2000. We see a very impressive demonstration of the manual pouring of a gold bar. Miranda sees a bracelet that she thinks would make a very nice Christmas present from me to her. Its gold plated native flora. It is the only one left. We snap it up. And who should be at the mint but the last person we wanted to see! No its not JPY. Lunch is the smorgasbord at Miss Maud's where we discover that there is also a Miss Maud's Swedish Hotel. The cost is about the same as Sullivan's, but breakfast is a free? Right, smorgasbord! We decide to change hotels. I return to Sullivan's to inform them of our decision and then go to the conference to give my talk. Miranda, overcome with the excitement of smorgasbords for the next day and a half, goes on a shopping spree and buys Christmas presents for all our little Australian relatives. The evening is spent packing our bags for tomorrow's transfer to Miss Maud's. Tuesday December 9, 2003 We check out, store our bags and wait for the shuttle to Barrack Street Jetty and the ferry (Miss Sandalford) that will take us up the Swan River for a day of wine and food. The first part of the day is a 2 hour cruise starting with coffee/tea and a muffin, followed by a cheese plate and 4 wines; 2 each from Evans and Tate, and Figtree Winery. Fortunately a slow cruise on a calm river is all that is needed to relax me. We are then bussed to Sandalford's Caversham Estate where 8 wines are laid out before us, discussed and then we are left to taste for ourselves. I reach for the first bottle but its grabbed away and a full glass is poured by someone who looks like he really does need a drink! I finally get to taste my way through the wines but Miranda is more selective. She is saving herself for the Sandalera, a dessert wine in the style of a rich Muscat that goes for $AUS90/500ml. Fortunately we only have to pay $5 for a taste but its worth it. The rest of the wines are not particularly outstanding although they are definitely a cut above the Mudgee wines. Miranda likes the Cabernet Merlot blend. My favorite is probably the Late Harvest Verdelho/Semillion. We leave the rest of the ferry crowd swaying at Sandalford and head out with a much smaller group for a more intimate road tour run by Swan Valley Tours. First stop is Jane Brook Winery (est. 1972) where Miranda and I seem to be the only ones who taste the whole lineup. Miranda likes the Sauvignon Blanc/Semillion blend while I prefer the Back Block Shiraz. The latter comes from 70 year old vines. The chardonnay is also nice. Lunch is at Jane Brook where we learn more about our follow tourists. There is Kim the tour guide, a young Swedish couple on a late honeymoon, Norma who is originally Scottish but is now looking to establish herself as tour guide, Maree an Australian who is taking the day off from the immunology conference and on vacation from Oxford, and a Philippino girl who is related to Kim and also wants to be a tour guide. To finish lunch we are given a glass of Jane Brook White Port. This is served chilled with ice and a slice of lemon. Normally I don't like to do anything that adulterates wine, but this tastes pretty good. From Jane Brook we walk next door to Garbin Estate Wines. Here we taste our way through another 10 wines. The first of these is a Chenin Blanc which is normally a dry white wine but this one is sweet due to the presence of residual sugar. Both Maree and I notice this and as we taste more of the wines it becomes obvious that Maree has a very good palate. The next stop is Swan Valley Cheese where all the cheeses are from cow's milk. After tasting several, Miranda buys some Mature Farmhouse. Hopefully it won't mature in the same way that the cheese we bought in Sydney did in the train carriage to Perth. An icecreamery is next on the tour. This business was established by an Australian army chef who found that the icecream he made for the troops was more popular than anything else he prepared. The next stop is a visit to an Aboriginal Arts and Crafts shop, Maalinup Aboriginal Gallery, where we get a didgeridoo demonstration and a talk on aboriginal weapons. The artwork is very good here and we buy several small pieces. The last stop is The Margaret River Chocolate Company in Swan Valley established because there were none in the Swan Valley, now it does a roaring trade. Then its home to Sullivan's as part of the door-to-door service of the tour. We are told to check the SVT website for pictures of the day but when we finally get to our room at Miss Maud's I find that the connection to the phone line will require me to buy yet another phone cord. So we head out for a walk and have a pizza at Villa Rustica in Northbridge. Wednesday December 10, 2003 Breakfast is, well if you don't know by now you've just been skimming this blog. Miranda appears to be coming down with head cold; probably due to all the smorgasbord! However she braves it all to buy a pair of high heel shoes to go with latest sexy outfit and then we head off to catch the ferry to the Perth Zoo. Its only a small zoo but very open, sort of like a miniature San Diego Wild Animal Park, or Dubbo's Western Plains Zoo. We lose each other at the dingo exhibit. I think she has gone on further into the Australian Wildlife Walk and go that way but she has simply gone around the corner to get a better view of the dingoes. When I return she tells how she has been communing with the male dingo. He seems very interested in her so she has been talking to him and he's been waging his tail. I think he just wants smorgasbord and is not really worried about what form it comes in! Afternoon and evening is spent resting Miranda's head (cold), catching up on this eBlog and packing for the midday flight back to Sydney tomorrow. Just before bed I notice a hidden phone connection that allows me to post the details of the train trip to the eBlog.