Two Days in Fremantle/Perth

 It's been a busy and rewarding 2 days in the Perth area.  Yesterday, day 1, we took the train from Fremantle to Perth, about a 30 minute ride.

Our planned first stop was the Western Australia Gallery of Art.  We were pleasantly surprised to find that the museum was a 1 minute walk from the train station.

And we were rewarded with an absolutely fantastic museum, filled with interesting exhibits.  First we went to the top floor and found a fascinating fantasy exhibit.

We then went out to the rooftop sculpture garden.

I'll now throw in a sampling of the rest of the exhibits.  We spent a good 2 hours there and it was time well spent.  Not only was the art great to look out, but each exhibit, each piece of art was making a statement.

After the museum we walked down to Elizabeth Quay to find some lunch.  At the quay, of course, we found the ubiquitous placard and the ubiquitous water park.

The quay was beautiful to walk around, the weather was great, but . . . .

. . . . since it was a holiday, many restaurants were closed.  So we trekked until we finally found an open sushi restaurant where we picked up lunch and ate on the mall.  Sadly, we didn't notice that they had a seating area with rotating sushi until after we had paid.  Our kids will understand our disappointment.

Our final destination was a return to Kings Park.  It was a difficult climb up from the river front to the entrance to the botanic garden where we attempted to reproduce a selfie from 5 years ago.

After viewing the ubiquitous war monument,

we walked down to the train station and returned to Fremantle for a relaxing evening on board.

Today, day 2, we started out by walking into Fremantle itself.  It is a nice city with a good market to peruse.

                                                    

But the highlight of the day was lunch with our dear friend and (former?) Oceania GM, Thierry Tholon.  We were joined by Thierry's partner, Chantelle, and two other Oceania cruisers, Rhonda and Glen.  We had a thoroughly enjoyable 3+ hour lunch.  Definitely the highlight of our day in Fremantle.

Tonight, we sail on to Busselton, where we are looking forward to walking the 1.84K long jetty!

Oh, lest I forget, let me give you the recap of the New Years Eve celebration on Regatta.  After getting all dressed up for the event, 

we enjoyed the entertainment around the ship until 10:00pm when we decided to check out the comedian (we had left early after finding him to be not so good in his previous show).  Well, between his boring routine and the ship's rocking, we called it quits and were in bed before 11:00pm.  It's tough getting old!  And this might be an appropriate line out of "Haven":

"Once childhood is over, don't the years pass too fast already, rolling over a man as fast as waves?"

Peace and blessings,

Linda and Larry