June 29: A Tower, a Bridge, and My Weight in Gold

We may have gotten a little bit of a late start, but it worked out beautifully. We started out by heading back to King’s Park where I had ridden the other day. I had wanted to go to the DNA Tower, but I couldn’t find it (there was a sign on the footpath, but not on the road...well, not on the road I went on). I don’t feel too bad because it still took us awhile to find it in the car. But find it we did!

Can you guess why it’s called the DNA Tower?

Marlene joined us today. Even though she is afraid of heights, she climbed the tower! 

Marlene making her way down.

We still had some time before our next stop, so we made our way over to the Treetop bridge. I took a photo of this bridge from the river when I rode into the city before.

See the bridge above the building?

Up on the bridge

From the bridge

The building below is the old Swan River Brewery

The Pioneer Women’s Memorial (on the way to/from the bridge)

Our next stop was the Perth Mint. 

They don’t mint currency there. They mint commemorative coins, and also did the medals for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

The tour guide, Jared, talked about the discovery of gold in Kalgoolie.

Jared made sure to tell us this wasn’t the real gold.

Inside they had a 1ton gold coin that they had made. It’s the heaviest coin in the world.

The 1 ton gold coin.

Lucky us, we got to find out our weight in gold (I’m sure I’m worth mine). I came out to $4,217,045.00! I got a sticker that says so (so it must be true).

The final part of the tour was watching the tour guide make a gold bar. 

The Melting Room

They’ve been making and reselling the same bar of gold since 1993 (they make it 49 times a week)!

Olympic medals

I thought the Mint was very interesting. We found out the actual currency is made in Canberra.

After the Mint, we went to Claisebrook Cove. There are great views of the Optus Stadium where they play Footie. There is also a very cool pedestrian bridge (still under construction).

The stadium and the bridge

We walked around to a bar and had hot chocolate and coffee (it was getting pretty chilly out). The sun set and the lights came on.

My hot chocolate 

The triangles are a pedestrian bridge. The red is the stadium. The water is the cove which is part of the Swan River.

When we got back to the car, we decided to go back up to King’s Park to see the city all lit up.

The city from King’s Park

The War Memorial and the moon (notice how the shadows make the Memorial look like a face?)

Our last stop was to head over to the South side of the river for a view of the city from there.

City from across the river

Once again, we had a fun-filled day of sightseeing more than we planned!