We landed in Perth late at night after a 4 hour flight and 3 time zone changes. It's easy to underestimate the size of Australia....it's roughly the same as the US. The west coast has only one major city in Perth and is otherwise sparsely populated. It's hard to see why. The coast line is beautiful and climate superb......at least this time of year. Perth and the surrounding area is one of the wealthiest regions in Australia as it was the focal point of the Gold Rush in the 1800's and continues to benefit from the mining industry. We picked up our rental car and drove a half hour south to the port town of Fremantle or Freo as it's known by the locals. The morning light revealed a lovely small town with unusual victorian architecture. The downtown buildings were mostly two story structures with 2nd floor patios that had ornate wrought-iron railings. Underneath these patios were dozens of open air cafe's. Downtown Fremantle looks remarkably like the French Quarter in New Orleans. This town has the highest population/cafe ratio I've ever seen. It seemed like most of the townsfolk spend their day lounging in cafe's. Of course that is how I spent much of my time there as well.
Luckily for us Chris was scheduled to perform for 2 nights at a funky cool club called Kulcha. This gave us the chance to unpack the bags, do some laundry and otherwise relax. The beach was in walking distance, so I had a couple of swims in the warm aqua blue Indian Ocean. This trip felt more like a beach holiday than a tour stop. Unfortunately it was abruptly ended by a 4am alarm in order to catch an early flight back to Melbourne.
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