Our alarm sounded at 7:00am but we stayed put for another 25 minutes. The rain we had yesterday is gone but forecast again for late on Saturday. Hopefully it will hold off until we get the caravan hitched and we get on the road south.
Today was our day in Perth and in particular, the Perth Mint.
On the internet we found several car parks in the CBD that appeared to have reasonable rates so we decided to drive. Our original plan had been to drive to Freemantle and then catch a train to the city. We figured the cost to be only marginally less than the cost to drive to the city so that confirmed our decision to have the benefit of the car.
It took us 30 minutes to drive into the city and park the car. We had a fairly long walk to the Perth Mint but a little shorter than the walk had we caught the train. We missed the 10:30am guided tour so we booked for the 11:30am tour.
Whilst waiting for the tour to start, we enjoyed coffee and purchased a special item from the gift shop (who is the special item for and it is not our Grandson?)
The tour was very interesting and the presentation nothing short of excellent. We were given a detailed explanation of gold exploration in Western Australia and how the mint became about. We were shown replicas of several pieces of gold with only one original remaining in a casino in Los Vega in the USA. Several of the largest nuggets found in the world have been in Australia with metal detectors responsible for several large finds.
Inside the mint we were shown a gold coin that weighed one tonne. The coin is solid gold and currently valued at $63,000,000. It is the largest coin in the world and is made of 99.99% pure gold. We also saw several other large nuggets protected behind security glass.
The final part of the tour was a demonstration of creating a gold brick. We watch the molten gold being poured into a mould and then cooled. This was performed in the 1899 original melting house. The gold bar is worth around $36,000.
We did attempt to invest in some gold bullion but a 3% surcharge on a credit card stopped us in our tracks. The only way we could have purchased the gold was to have paid cash and the bank was too far away.
After leaving the mint we had lunch at the Coffee Club. “She” then checked out David Jones and Myer looking for something to wear to a wedding.
After collecting the car (parking cost us $17 for about 4 hours), we headed to Kings Park to take some pictures of the Perth CBA and the Swan River.
We returned to our caravan after refuelling and purchasing a chicken for tea.
We watched sunset over the Indian Ocean as the weather forecast for the next couple of days whilst we are still on the coast is for rain.
We had a quiet evening watching television.