What time is it there?!

After five hours flying west and putting our watches back three hours we are still in the same country but we’ve traded the Pacific for the Indian Ocean. Perth is “The most remote major city in the world”, it’s closer to Jakarta than it is to Sydney. As you might expect this remoteness hasn’t exactly sheltered Perth from the onslaught of ‘globalisation’, and of course it has all the things you’d find in most big cities. Despite this it’s a nice place, although the city centre isn’t exactly overflowing with tourist attractions.

We did go and visit the Perth Mint which was quite interesting. You get to watch demonstrations of liquid gold being poured and made into bars, and if you’ve found the odd nugget lying around out in the desert you can sell it here (or buy more if you prefer). If you haven’t found yourself any gold then you can go and handle a real 12kg bar (it’s well protected against theft!), you could probably also buy it if you had the £95,000 or so that would be required.

Probably the most noticeable part of the skyline is the Swan Bell Tower, which was one of Western Australia’s Millennium projects. This is the home to the original bells of St Martin-in-the-fields in London. They were originally going to be melted down to make new bells, but the Aussies fancied them for themselves so they traded the bells for some nice new steel to make the replacements for St Martins. They did build a very impressive tower to put them in, and it gives good views across the city as well as a good look at the bells "in action".