Description: King’s Park is somewhere well worth a visit which you can get to on the Cat buses and once you are there you can walk down a wonderful avenue of Lemon scented Ghost Gum trees on Fraser’s Avenue. These huge trees were originally planted in 1937 and every tree has a plaque on it remembering an important person from the first hundred years of Perth’s foundation as a colony. The aroma is very lemony with a hint of eucalyptus as you walk down between these magnificent trees with their silver/green leaves. The scent is full-on, not a subtle aroma but it is so evocative and certainly something I will remember with a smile. The avenue was apparently named after Malcolm Fraser who was the first surveyor general of Western Australia.
There is a very interesting gift shop called ‘Aspects of King’s Park’ which is more like an art/craft gallery and book shop. The items are not the usual cheap tat in fact most were quite expensive. There are quality books and some very unusual glass ware, pottery and other art work as well as jewellery made from Australian gem stones. The people working in the shop were very friendly and happy to show you things of interest even if you were obviously not buying anything.
One of the sights of king’s Park is the view of the city of Perth seen from the park. It is a beautiful city set on the Swan River with a few high rise buildings and acres of green parkland. The view can be seen from a number of places. One popular place is the Lotterywest Foundation Walkway which was opened in 2003. The walkway is about 600metres long and is a pathway that then this takes you up on an arched bridge of glass and steel above the gum trees. You can also go to Mount Eliza’s Lookout via various paths or you can just look out from near the State War memorial along Fraser’s Avenue.
There a number of walking tracks and you can ask for a free guide to show you areas of particular interest. Within the park are several speciality gardens for native plants, a water garden, a conservation area and so on. I was interested in the area near the visitor centre there were Western Australian flowers such as the Sturt’s Desert Pea, Geralton wax flowers and the State flower of Western Australia, the Kangaroo paw. It was nice to be able to see these wild flowers in life rather than just on a postcard and as we were only in Perth for a few days and not travelling elsewhere in WA it was probably our only opportunity.
There was so much more but we only had a limited time in Perth and quite a few things we wanted to see and do.
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