Down Under

I have never been to Australia until recently. It's obviously a shame, as there is so much to see and do there, but what is more shameful that I have 'worked' on Australia for so long! Yeah, don't be surprised, and that is well before the covid days of remote work. Modern exploration geologists in hydrocarbon exploration rarely need to visit the site, and does most of the work from computer. But as Q said once in Skyfall, that "Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled"....so I find myself down under at Perth Australia!

Just for the records, its my favorite Bond Movie, and I absolutely love this scene.

"Not exactly Christmas, is it?".... no, it is not, and it is a "brave new world" out there! Alright, back to Perth.

Perth is a long way out there from Houston where I live. It is a 17 hours direct flight to Sydney, and then another 5 hours plus to Perth. No wonder, I haven't been here, I thought as I got off my Virgin Australia connection! However, outside the airport there weather was pleasant. The drive to downtown was uneventful and can be through any of the mid sized American city. Hey, the downtown is nice and pretty and by the water of the Swan River, which gives it a lot of character. I stayed at the wanterfront, and it is nice and walkable, has a nice set of restaurants and pubs within walking distance.

Kings Park

I had some of the most awful jet lag and so I was up 3 am the following morning. My meeting wasn't till 8am, so I had plenty of time with nothing much to do. Sunrise is very early there (winter solstice in southern hemisphere!), it was light at 5am. So I thought there is plenty of time to walk to the bluff and surrounding park I am observing from my window. That's King's Park, about 30 min walk from downtown, also there is free bus service, called CAT, which I thought was a nice touch. I wanted to stretch my legs and approach the park via Kokoda Track, a series of concrete/rock steps to remember the 60 km track at the site of the battle in Papua New Guinea, between Japanese and Australian troops during WWII. More info about that here.

It is a popular walking path today and lots of people do climb up and down to do their daily exercise steps. The path above leads to a giant Boab tree planted there.

The tree is called Gija Jumulu. It was removed during the construction of the Great Northern Highway around near Warmun in the Kimberly region of Western Australia, and was transported 3200 KM to its current location here.

There is a viewing area near there and view of the Perth downtown is spectacular.

The view of South Perth from there is equally gorgeous. The park itself has a lot of green and miles of walking path. There are family gathering near the WW monument on top of the bluff every weekend and holidays. I wish I could spend more time there, but work called and I had to leave. I promised myself to get back to the city as soon as possible.