Adventures in and around Perth

View of Perth skyline from Kings Park

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Australasian Society for Immunology annual meeting in Perth last week. The society is made up of Immunologists from Australia and New Zealand. There were about 600 people it attendance. Perth is the capitol of Western Australia and was a five and a half hour plan ride (probably similar from flying from Seattle to New York) as the countries are similar in size. I have heard people say that Perth is similar to Los Angeles (maybe because of weather and west coast location). Upon arrival in Perth I noted some similarities to LA including palm tree lined streets. Also it has been quite dry for the past three months so that lawns are brown and it lacks the humidity found on the east coast of Australia where I live.Perth is known for its laid back lifestyle and is one of the most remote large cities in the world.  It is not a large city, about 1.6 million, but it is definitely feeling the effects of the mining boom of natural resources in Western Australia. There are cranes everywhere in the central business district or CBD as they refer to the central commercial area. In addition to attending the conference and learning about the great science and big names in immunology here in Australia I had the chance to visit Rottnest Island (18km, ~11miles) off the coast in the Indian Ocean.

One of the bays on Rottnest Island

Rottnest Island was nearly a two hour ferry ride from Perth. First we traveled from Perth which is inland on the Swan River and then from Freemantle on the coast out into the Indian Ocean to the island. It is a car free island, just a bus service and numerous tourists mostly on bicycle. It is a small island 11km long by 5km at its widest spot (~7 x 3 miles). It is actually quite hilly as I was soon to learn biking around the island and was a good work out.

Quokka

The unique animal for which the island is named are Quokkas. They are very small marsupials only a foot tall and were at first mistaken as being rats by Dutch explorers who named the island "rat nest" and that is why it is called Rottnest Island. We were fortunate to see a few Quokkas, first under a tree and then a couple near a picnic area overlooking the ocean. The second ones were not afraid of people and appeared used to being fed and were even petted by some of my travel companions. It was my first experience up close with marsupials in the wild though the ones we were very close to did not seem all that wild.

A smaller quokka

Biking around the island are beautiful turquoise waters, white sands, and remnants of shipwrecks on the coral reefs. Swimming is available at any of the beaches, just hop into the water, and snorkeling can be done on many of them as well. I went for a brief swim and it was quite refreshing.








The water wasn't as warm as my previous visit to the Indian Ocean in South Africa but was nice and the white sand was quite coarse made up of crushed sea shells.

Beach where I went swimming

London Court (pedestrian mall)

The city of Perth itself was nice and clean. It had a good mix of old buildings including churches and government buildings with character and new buildings. The pedestrian malls were busy and it was easy to get around by foot. The malls were decorated for Christmas.

It was at least a twenty minute walk from our hotel to the conference at the convention center each day. I could walk along the Swan River or pass by the parks near the Government House. The green spaces were quite nice.

Government House grounds