Sun and Parks

I walked. A lot. In Perth, I walked. It is a very lovely and walkable city. Mostly flat and beautiful to look at. There is a lot of green space and they take advantage of their river front as well.

I went for a walk in Kings Park. This park is big and at the top of Perth. It is home to a botanical garden, a lot of native plants, and many memorials for various events.

As I was there around Remembrance Day, they were setting up at the State War Memorial. Australia and New Zealand (and a few others, I'm sure) have ANZAC Day in April, which is more in line to what we think of as Remembrance Day. At any rate, they held services on 11 November.

Each of these poppies - and hundreds more - were hand knit by Guides, members of the Returned & Services League (like the Legion), and dozens of volunteers. All told, there were 62,000 poppies made that spread over the memorial and the surrounding areas. The poppies with black centres are for soldiers, white centres are for nurses, and purple are for animals.  I was there while they were setting up and the volunteers were very kind with information and offers to move boxes so I could get a better picture.

 

Boab trees look like upside down carrots.

This structure is called DNA Tower. It has 101 steps and was modelled after a staircase in the Château de Blois in France. There is a sign at the base explaining what DNA is and who discovered it. I was impressed it also noted the work of Roaslind Franklin, a woman who is often left out of the history.

For the first time in a long time, James got to chill with his buddy Queen Victoria!

The surprise of the park for me was the Queen Elizabeth Shell Memorial.
With a name like this, my imagination came up with a couple of scenarios:
- A monument to Queen Elizabeth, sponsored by Shell
- A statue of Queen Elizabeth, made of shells.
- A shell once used or held by Queen Elizabeth that was worth memorializing.

What I did not expect was this:

Shells of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, marking the date of the declaration of war by Britain upon Germany. The monument was placed in 1919. I don't know much about HMS Queen Elizabeth as it looks like they've recycled the name for a new vessel.

Next: River! CBD (which is Australian for "downtown" and has nothing to do with cannabis)!