Wednesday 4 May 2016

A Titanic load of Art in Perth

Perth, the 4th largest city in Australia and the capitol of Western Australia. We certainly aren't city folk, but after we discovered we were heading into the south west right before a public holiday weekend we decided to find somewhere to stay asap! Not too far from the city we parked up at the Discovery Caravan Park in Forrestfield. As I said before, not city folk, so more than happy to use public transport rather than have the hassle of driving around looking for a park. 


Perth had a similar vibe to most big cities, big towers, lots of people and good public transport. We wondered around for a while aimlessly just looking around and browsing the shops. At one point there was a trendy clothes shop in the mall with a massive line up, security and all that. No idea what was going on there, but occaisonally the loud screams of excited teenage girls erupted through the streets. Must have been one of them Beibers or something. Elizabeth Quay is looking nice and modern with street vendors, music, charter operators, pubs and resturaunts lining the place.

After scouting out the city we decided to check out a Titanic Exhibition that was on town. It was full of stories and acounts from different angles, info on how the crash occured and was full of old relics. My particular favourite was this cigarette dispenser. I don't smoke, but if I did, I'd carry one of these everywhere! Alcoholic? Nup, just need some smokes! Some of the information reguarding truth and myth was pretty interesting, especially with the way the lifeboats were initially used and some of the possibly tall stories. A story tells of the ship sinking and one Frenchman literally thinking "Bugger standing here waiting for the ship to sink!" and swam off to one of the first life boats launched, one with barely any passengers on board. Another story I particularly liked was one about a couple honeymooning, promising the husband's mothers they would not travel by sea as it brought bad luck. Well they made a bunch of letters and got their buttler to send them off while they went on their voyage. She survived, he did not, and even after news reached the family, the loyal butler, unaware of the disaster, continued sending the pre-written letters. 


We had also heard about "Sculptures by the Sea", a free art exhibition at Cottesloe Beach just south of the city. We jumped on a bus and headed on down there. Cottesloe is a pretty location, nice clean beaches with cafes, resturaunts and pubs lining the beach. Add the fact it was the first weekend of the exhibition and a Sunday before a public holiday and you'd understand the place was pumping, completely packed with people! 
There was all sorts of art on display around the beach, big heads, abstract stuff, horses and other animals. One of the clubs by the beach was opened up and used to display even more art, stuff you could purchase. We had a nice stroll through checking it all out. Here is some of the sculptures we thought were pretty cool:


 The Break Wall - Elyssa Sykes-Smith

 Bubble - Pamela Lee Brenner & Johannes Muljana

Nest 06 - Jakub Geltner

 Pig of Fortune - Tae-Geun Yang


Once we were done and back in Perth we decided to grab some grub, conveniently there was a pub with a catchy name. We ended up skipping the Lucky Shag in preference for the Aqua Bar where we ended up having a few sneaky beers over some "polenta chips". Yeah I'm fancy alright, I eat polenta chips and look at artwork!
Perth is quite an interesting city and there is a bit of something for everyone. We are enjoying our experience in Western Australia so far and can't wait for more fun and exciting adventures!

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