Perth Again

November 30

Back to Perth to get Maria on her way back home.

We got settled into our old hotel, got a good nights sleep, and began our first full day in Perth at Curtin University. You can see by the picture that late November is quite different than what we experience as northerners. The campus is quite nicely landscaped, as many Universities are, and it was lovely to walk around the grounds. We met up with my collaborator, Maria got set up to work on the internet, and we finished up our few hour visit by having lunch on campus. Our next adventure was to visit Freemantle (~ 25 km from Perth). So began some serious shopping for Maria. We also had a nice dinner at the downtown shopping area there. It was a be seeing many more people in an hour than lived within 50 miles of us in Eneabba.

The next day was a downtown Perth day. I took the bus (powered by Natural Gas) to the bus center, walked a few hundred feet to the convention center, and crashed the Australian Ecological Society Conference. My collaborator was speaking at 9:30. It was strange to be at a science conference, it just happened to be going during the time we were in town. It was also interesting to see the scope of the Australian ESA meeting; the american ESA conference is at least ten times as large (attendance wise - a few hundred versus many thousands). In the U.S. it truly ends up being an exhausting experience to try and go to all the talks that interest you, to try to see all the posters that seem interesting, and to visit with all the folks you need to talk with. Like many things in Australia, the pace and feel of things was much more relaxing. At break I was talking to an Australian myrmecologist from Darwin (I surprised him when I walked up and said hello - Dave! What are you doing here?) when Maria showed up for her promised visit. She left to go to the shopping area and I ended up staying at the conference past 2 PM.

I then spent a few hours walking around the downtown shopping area, in part to look around the stores and to see if I could find Maria. The shopping areas in the major cities of Australia are set up differently than we are used to in the U.S. There is usually a street or two, stretching for a number of city blocks, that only allows foot traffic. There are store fronts on both sides, large stores underground, and other walkways that are perpendicular to the street that open into what are best described as an inside mall. Needless to say all of this shopping space and the people it held made my searching around for Maria a futile experience.

Maria and I met up at the room and after awhile we headed back downtown to eat dinner. I made a mistake in getting dressed - putting on my flip-flops instead of sneakers - as we discovered when we found most eating establishments downtown would not let anyone in who was wearing "thongs." Who knew? We did finally find a nice place and had a lovely dinner.

Up at 4 AM on November 30th, out the door and drive to the airport, and Maria was off for her day plus trip to get to Boston. I went back to the hotel and slept for a few more hours. I met up with one of the scientists in Perth for breakfast downtown, went food shopping, and was on the road to Eneabba early in the afternoon.

So much for the big city. Back to the land of Ronnie the Raven, Roxy the kangaroo, and the the hopsitality of Alan and Lorraine at Western Flora Caravan Park.