PERTH 7 - KINGS PARK (JANUARY 2014)

As I write it is 0630 hours on a fine Perth morning. The sun is well risen and the Kingsway caravan park alarm clock has duly chimed. This park has many logistical and location advantages for us...peace and quiet is definitely not one of them.

We are surrounded, more or less on three sides, by main roads. Wanneroo Road and Kingsway form direct boundaries with the park, whilst Hepburn Avenue lies some 500 metres to the south. Both Wanneroo and Hepburn are major through roads which carry considerable traffic. This, and the fact that the disproportionately powerful country lobby group in WA has continued to stymie any attempt to introduce daylight saving to this state, produces an interesting outcome....very early morning heavy traffic. 

With the summer sun rising as early as 0500 hours, many of Perth's working folk quite logically head out equally early. A steady roar of traffic noise assails this park from 0530 hours onwards. If this and the increasing daylight are not enough to arouse the odd tousled head or two, nature now joins the party. Can there possibly be any two more raucous and less melodious bird calls than the harsh and persistent rasping of crows or the demonic screeching of corellas?  I doubt it, and at the moment we have them both....in spades. Thank goodness I am a natural early riser.

Beyond the discordant symphony of this morning cacophony we are treated to yet more road noise, particularly in the late afternoon and evening.....hoons and more hoons. The overly rich rewards of work in the mining industry has resulted in many of the local youths becoming the proud and irresponsible owners of high powered cars and motor cycles. It seems that many of these wealthy young ratbags are hell bent on demonstrating that there is an inverse relationship between the power of their machines and that of their brains, particularly as they take off from the nearby traffic lights. We have almost become inured to the offensive aural intrusion of high powered motors revving to their limits. Almost!  The prospect of our departure to the peace of the Great Southern (specifically Albany) is becoming increasing more appealing.

But for now let us escape the racket and head off to the tranquillity of Perth's famous Kings Park. It's reputation is richly deserved....what a delight it is to wander around the 406 hectares of this enormous park of many parts.

Formal lawns, gardens and statues give way to fascinating botanical rambles.  Swathes of raw bushland are dotted with green and shady picnic areas, all well serviced by an extensive local road network.  

And the views....the views.  Below the eastern end of the ridge on which the park has been built, the Perth CBD, nearby suburbs and the vast expanses of the mighty Swan River are all laid out below for those lucky enough to visit to the park. 

Where to begin? Fraser Avenue, the main entrance road into the park seems like a good place. This avenue of towering Lemon Scented gums takes visitors to the park information centre, cafe and Government reception buildings and also provides access to a number of points of interest along the way.

Many Western Australians died in that dreadful demonstration of twisted religious fervour which was the Bali bombing and here, on the eastern side of Fraser Avenue, stands a memorial to not only those who died but also to the survivors and the relatives. One fascinating aspect of this modest looking memorial is the fact that the gap between its two major sections has been specifically aligned with the position of the rising sun on the anniversary date of the tragedy. 





Almost opposite the Bali Memorial site is one of total contrast. Here we find good old Queen Victoria gazing imperiously over the Swan, 













and, as can be seen from this reverse shot, she has quite a view.











Kings park is huge, much larger than the famous Central park of New York city, and its elevated position atop Mount Eliza provides many spectacular views over the Swan River and beyond. In addition to the many free picnic areas, the expanses of the park also house a number of buildings which are available for public hire.   

This quaint but charming Tea Pavilion on the western side of Fraser Avenue is one example. Initially we wondered how a booking could reserve exclusive use of this facility, and then,

all became clear....it's an honour system, as the somewhat dated notice on the booking board demonstrated. We did wonder who would sort out the mess if the wedding guests on January 18 lingered beyond their allotted time and intruded on Trish's 60th, and then we noted that the park is heavily patrolled by staff of the 'Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority'. We preferred to think that good manners would prevail. 







From this point on Fraser Avenue, we could see south across the lawns to gain our first glimpse of the magnificent Western Australian War Memorial which has pride of place in terms of the views over the Swan.









Fraser Avenue ends at a roundabout overlooked by the grand Government reception building











and the adjoining cafe and information centre where we tarried just long enough to arm ourselves with the necessary visitor map of our proposed walk through the Botanical Gardens section of the park 












before we then turned our heads east to look along the pathway to the War Memorial.







Past the curved walls of the western side of the memorial lies the 'Court of Contemplation'

where a sign around the low wall invites visitors to let 'Silent Contemplation Be Your Offering'.








Below the Court of Contemplation steps take one to the rear and bottom of the Memorial building where various chambers house the honour rolls of the different conflicts in which Western Australians have been involved.







And it if from this vantage point that the real majesty of the Swan River comes into view.  Here the limitations of your correspondent's trusty camera were severely exposed (that would have been really good pre-digital!) and I have garnered this shot of the Perth CBD from the net. For good or ill, I take responsibility for the remainder of the pictorial content. 

From this aspect we pan right to look further east down the Swan past the eastern end of the CBD to the faint outline of the ridge of the distant Darling Range,










and, continuing to the right, over the Narrows Bridge to Mill Point and the suburbs of South Perth









and beyond that, further to the right, we look over the roof of the old Swan brewery building to the distant entrance to the Canning River and the Canning River bridge (immediately to the left of the tall darkish building at the upper right of the shot)  I have to confess that these photos do not really do justice to the extraordinary panoramic view on offer from our vantage point, but it was the best I could do. 






After quite a few minutes spent taking all this in, we headed off to the beginning of the pathway which was to lead us through the Botanic park and on to the elevated walkway.






The gardens of this section of Kings Park consist entirely of native plant species.  As we had first discovered in the Great Western Woodland at the end of our Nullarbor crossing, WA is a biodiversity hotspot. This fact was reinforced here in Kings Park with a sign proclaiming that of the 25,000 plant species known to exist in Australia, a third can be found in WA and amongst these are many which exist nowhere else in the country, let alone the world. 


I have to confess that Liz and I cannot be counted amongst those with broad botanical knowledge....we were more interested in gaining a general impression...but even we were impressed by the extensive explanatory signage which is a real feature of this part of the park.  This one, for example, depicts and describes the 'South West Forest Giants'...Jarah, Karri, Tuart, etc.






And then we came across something entirely different! This is a a tree with a real story to tell. This huge boab tree appeared to have just been plonked here on the pathway..surely not...but true indeed. This grand tree began its life at Telegraph Creek, 3,200 kms north west of Perth where it had been steadily growing for the past 750 years. However, in 2008 it was found to be in the way of a proposed new bridge on the Great Northern Highway. In an inspired move, the 'powers that be' decided that this ancient arboreal wonder deserved a better fate than destruction with the result that it was dug up, slung up onto a massive low loader and hauled all the way south to its present location. An impressive effort all round.




Let me divert from our botanical ramble at this point to tell the tale of another tree of note in the park, one which could not be more different from the majestic boab, a less than majestic red gum sapling....'The Duke's Tree', the story of which is a lesson in what we considered to be somewhat cringing colonial persistence. In March 1954, The Duke of Edinburgh planted a red gum at this spot to commemorate his visit to Perth. It was subsequently wiped out by a storm, so undeterred, the good burghers of Perth had his nibs plant another during his next visit in November 1962. And guess what? Number two had to be removed because of 'structural damage'. I would have though this should have been enough, but no, we couldn't possibly offend HRH by doing nothing about a replacement. At least he wasn't dragged back to Perth to do the honours personally again...'The Duke's Tree' (third attempt) was grown from seed from the nearby 'Queen's Tree'. I chucked to think of what could be made of this in the royal family in the future if number 3 survives!






But let's get back to our botanical wanderings. From the boab tree the path took us through more native bush







where another gem awaited our attention.  As you can probably imagine without difficulty, all this bush provides a haven for native birds, and I was lucky enough to spot these two Rainbow Lorikeets 

making the most of their front porch as we passed below their cosy tree trunk hollow 

and made our way on to the elevated walkway, where

from the zenith of its arch















we had a wonderful rooftop view of the of the old Swan brewery (now converted to apartments), Mill Point, the Narrows Bridge and the Perth CBD skyline.











Beyond the elevated walkway the path took us through more native bushland














until we reached the end of the native plant section and found ourselves meandering past a series of charming ponds and streams,












where, looking over one pond, the height of the elevated walkway can be clearly seen.










From here, as we wandered our way back to the car park, we passed a number of delightful grassy nooks and crannies, one of which was about to become the venue for a child's birthday party.....what a spot for such an event on a hot Perth day.













And we were not finished yet with water features.  We had spotted this erupting geyser from afar and now discovered that this pond celebrated 'motherhood' (why we don't know) with a series of varied fountain eruptions of which this was the biggest.

Once the big boys had done their thing, this group of smaller jets erupted in series behind which stands the motherhood statue.










And, as one would expect, the proponent of, and driving force behind the development of this magnificent park has been honoured appropriately. The statue of Lord Forrest, WA's first Premier, stands in splendid isolation in the centre of this swathe of green.





Kings Park is much more than the formal memorial areas and the botanic gardens as we discovered when we ended this wonderful morning with a drive through the quite extensive park road network. Well established and maintained picnic areas are dotted throughout, and from what we observed as we slid by, they are extremely well patronised in this extraordinary park which is open to the public 24 hours a day.  Perth, take a bow!