Australian Ports

Port of Call: Esperance
     Our first port of call after leaving Fremantle (Perth) was the small town of Esperance on the south coast.  Espérence is a French word meaning "hope" and was named by French explorers in the late 18th century.  Its main reason for existence was that it was suitable for development of a port and was close enough to the gold fields to the north to make it a suitable cargo terminal.

     Esperance gained some world attention in 1979 when pieces of the space station Skylab fell on the town and the town council fined the United States $400 for littering.  A California radio station host picked up the "David vs. Goliath" story which gained the town international media attention.  The San Francisco Examiner offered a $10,000 prize for the first piece of Skylab to be delivered to their offices. Seventeen-year-old Stan Thornton scooped a few pieces of Skylab off the roof of his home in Esperance, caught the first flight to San Francisco, and collected the prize.  The town has been using their brief period of notoriety to attract tourists ever since and have a small museum dedicated to the events of that time.

Gulls admiring the seal statue in the centre of  town

Unique sculpture of a whale tail

Electric barbeques free for the use of the public

Port of Call: Adelaide
     Our next port was Adelaide, the capital city of the state of South Australia.  Adelaide is uniquely designed in a grid with wide boulevards, large public squares and surrounded by parkland.  It is one of the few cities in Australia to not have a convict history, but because of the freedoms that people enjoyed there, escaped convicts from other parts of the country came there to prey upon the citizens.

We enjoyed the many preserved and restored old buildings. 
This one has "Newmarket" on the top side

Plenty of modern buildings interspersed amongst the classics

Atop Mount Lofty, the highest point near Adelaide

View from Mount Lofty -- the city and the ocean in the background

Wallabies at the Cleland Wildlife Park

A Bilby, also called a rabbit-eared bandicoot.  It is a desert-dwelling marsupial omnivore.

A lorikeet, a species of parrot.

More classic architecture

This building never had any use connected to bees or honey, but was named to reflect its position as a busy trading corner.  Later owners exploited the name and added a gilded beehive and bees.

The South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute

Port of Call: Melbourne
     Our next port was Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria.  The city was well-established during the early 1800's but ballooned after the discovery of gold in mid-1851.  By 1865, the gold rush had caused the city's population to exceed that of Sydney to become the most populous city in the country.  The gold rush petered out around then, but Melbourne continued to prosper as a major port for the agricultural products of Victoria, especially wool.

We did an interesting excursion on the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant. These trams were originally in regular passenger service on the streets of Melbourne before they were retired, refitted with a kitchen and dining saloons and returned to service in 1983.  We did the "High Tea" lunch service tour and enjoyed scones, jam, sandwiches, tea, coffee and a traditional dessert, the Lamington, an Australian dessert cake made from squares of sponge cake coated in an outer layer of  raspberry sauce and rolled in desiccated coconut. The thin mixture is absorbed into the outside of the sponge cake and left to set, giving the cake a distinctive texture.  As you dine, the tram does a tour of downtown Melbourne.  All this, and an opera-singing waiter as well!

This waiter entertained our car with snippets of opera singing.

Eureka Building Skydeck 88.  It is the tallest building in Australia and has the fastest elevators.

Bev posting a card on Eureka Skydeck 88

View of the city from Eureka Skydeck 88

Bees on the side of the Eureka building. 
 Perhaps the designer was trying to steal the concept from Adelaide's Beehive Corner?

Ferries to Tasmania depart from Melbourne

     Melbourne is a very cosmopolitan city, effectively combining the old with the new to make it a very livable place, from our short experience there.

These ports were an excellent start to your cruise. More to come...