Day 4: 13/3/2007



AQWA (Aquarium of Western Australia) was on the cards today. However, to get there was quite the adventure. AQWA is at Hillary's Boat Harbour, a costal place much like Freemantle, except with less historical significance. Since it was on the outskirts of Perth, weh ad to take a train down. To make things even more complicated, there was no direct train to Hillary's Boat Harbour.



Intially, the people at the train station told us to take 456 from Greenwood Station. HOwever, on the AQWA pamphlet it was indicated that bus 423 went to AQWA from Warwick train station. To make things more complicated, the bus info centre personnel also agreed witht eh AQWA pamphlet.

In the end, the bus timings decided us. 456 had more buses over the weekend than 423. So we set off down the Joondalup line to Clarkson, stopping at Greenwood station.

To get to our destination, we took an All-day pass for my mom and I. On weekends, we can have 2 adults on 1 all-day ticket for $7.70. Given the distance to Hillary's Boat Harbour, this was cheap. Unlike Freemantle, there was no pretty scenery as the railway line ran parallel to the freeway. We got there without much fuss and caught our bus.

Hillary's Boat Harbour is a shopping centre cum eating place with AQWA set right at the corner of the piers there. The houses on the bus route are a lot prettier than the ones I've seen so far, and many of the owners have boats. This makes sense, as the sea a Hillary's Boat Harbour is beautiful and deep. THe view is lovely.

We got inside AQWA and saw a lot of fishes. There was a little preview section at the front featuring mini-versions of the fishes we could see. We were then whisked away to a marine trip of animals from allalong the West Coast.

The first and most impressive exhibit was in the Shipwreck Coast section. Featuring an overhead tank with huge sharks, stingrays and colourful fish, it was one of the most spectacular and exciting exhibits. There's nothing quite like looking right into a shark's mouth as it swims right past you.

The variety of the fishes in AQWA are quite wide, considering that they are from along the same coast and occasionally from areas bordering each other. THere was also a danger zone with a lot of poisonous fishies. At least unlike the Perth Zoo, it was a little easier to see the fishes. The seahorses there are also very pretty.

In addtion to fishies, there were seals. There was a really playful seal that was playing with a guy by pretending to snap at his palms that were resting against the glass.

All in all, the AQWA was pretty neat. My only gripe was that it could have gone on for longer and that the fishes in the petting poll are notoriously hard to pat.

Hillary's is supposedly known for its food, but most of the food there was in restaurants and thus highly priced. We tried the fish & chips but it was pretty oily and there was simply too much to eat. Next time I'll look up restaurants before actually heading to a place.

The greatest pay-off was actually watching hotel TV. I caught a really exciting show called Mythbusters where basically they check out myths and try to scientifically examine them. I watched the pirate special and they had really goo dmyths. For example, the belief that eye-patches didn't cover up a missing eye but actually helped pirates switch from day vision to night vision quickly by keeping one eye always in the dark. A cool show.