(2015/04/07-9) … with kind of tears we left the burn and returned to Perth. I really would liked to stay another day and see everything calm down, but i had to drop Heyu at the airport in Perth and there was bad weather forecasted. For the accommodation this night i got two offers, one from our lovely neighbours and now burners and from an other burner which offered i could stay in her house. Heyu was safely dropped at the airport with a short goodbye, i will see him in two week at AfrikaBurn again. Where should i stay this night now? Sadly one of my options haven’t got feedback from her neighbours so i couldn’t stay in her house. My stomach said, feed me, as i passed the Red Rooster fast-food store, a very welcomed alternative to my burner food or better known as “50 shades of tuna”. Still haven’t got positive feedback about my first stay for this night and no balance left on my phone for making a phone call to Leona and Paul for staying (and of course letting them a night for calm down and cleanup) i choose a free spot to stay, about 25km south of Perth in the Frank Lupino Memorial Park. In the meantime the rain had started and the food coma worked well to let me fall asleep very fast.
The rain made sightseeing not easy, but having a load of dirty clothes changed my plans to do the laundry first. Not a bad decision, in the afternoon the rain had stopped and my cloths clean and dry. Kings Park and Botanic Garden, The Bell Tower, Hay Street Mall, London Court and finally having a a delicious Tom Yam Soup in Northbridge finished the tour. Leona and Paul had already sorted their stuff out and i got a message that i can stay in Pauls guest room. I was now totally happy to have two nights in a proper bed and with nice people. To match my burner name “The Real Beer Luke” i went to a liquor store to buy some real beer and i showed up at Pauls house with 6 bottles Weihenstephaner (3xhell, 3xdunkel). It was very nice to see him again and with 2×2 beers the time with chatting was gone really fast.
On the next day the rain was still present and i had to focus my sightseeing to the indoor ones. The first stop was The Perth Mint, a museum of gold/silver coin making. Sadly it wasn’t really the money worth, there where lots of coins to buy but no really explained how they make the coins. Based on some artefacts in the exhibition you could see and guess how they were made. The focus was more on gold, how it looks like, with displays of huge golden nuggets and even replicas of some biggest in the world which were found in Australia. The 1 Million Dollar coin with an actual value of 59 Million Dollar was really impressive and holds the actual world record of the biggest gold coin in the world. Sadly no picture was allowed to take. In the showroom, the former and old gold melting centre, they had melt on of their gold bars and poured them to an gold bar again. While walking back to the car i remembered to my sisters idea of having a special travel guide for rainy days.
I wasn’t sure about my last stop, if i should do an art and history museum or the Scitech museum, but the last won. What i didn’t realised was, that this is usually only for kids. Lot of exhibitions where made for kids to play around and learn about the physics how they work. Disappointed? No, definitely not. Okay, it was easter school vacation and it was crowded, but it was still fun to play with the basic setups because you really know how they work, instead of the kids which just ran around and hammer randomly on the buttons. They had a bee colony behind PVC which was connected via pipes to the outside world, which was really nice to watch, because they had to train the bees to use so long corridors to get to the outside. It was pretty cool to get some inspiration for art projects and to have the chance to talk to one of the nerds who was playing around with 3D printers and soak up some information and hints how they work, which problems they have with it and how they solve them. This exhibition is made for kids, but they also have special nights for grownups and parents. I really have to say, they did a really good job and for the fee to have an admission to a physics demonstration (made for kids, and was awesome to watch and hear the kids how fascinated they was by laser, blacklight, fire and explosions) and a planetarium. At all? Go there, enjoy it, it was worth. Next time choose the grownups night. Maybe i should visit the Deutsche Museum in Munich again. The last time i were there was when i was a child. Back at Pauls place, he showed me one of his future projects which looks pretty cool and I’m pretty sure he will solve his small problems he has with it…