Unbelievable, we have nearly completed six weeks of tour and today we fly to our final destination, Perth before heading home South. Happy days, it’s sunny in Perth! Not surprising then to discover that Perth is known as the ‘sunniest capital city in the world’ with an average of 8 hours of sunshine per day, 365 days of the year! Perth is the capital of Western Australia and is said to be one of the most beautiful cities in Australia. It also has the greatest concentration of Aboriginal art with more than 10,000 ancient rock engravings, some dating back 10,000 years.
Perth City is situated between the Darling Ranges and the Indian Ocean, and along the banks of the peaceful flowing Swan River, 12 km from the ocean. The river is named after the famous black swans which can be found along the river.
Thursday 11th August
Our last Rotary Club presentation on this tour, we visited Rotary Club of Cockburn. At the end of the talk they presented us with AUS$500 and they already have their African Green Acre Certificate with sponsorship of 5 Rhino Acres on the Environment Africa website: http://www.environmentafrica.org/test/
Friday 12th August
Garth Davis, Branch Manager of The Investor’s Club, TIC www.tic.com.au/branch38/ – had made contact with us during our tour and invited us to give a talk at their monthly member’s meeting. What a fitting finale to the end of our tour – they really went the extra mile, hosting an African Theme. The evening started out with a session of drumming led by Mickey Shaked of Human Rhythms – http://www.humanrhythms.com.au
Mickey leads the way with no talking whatsoever, he gets the audience to follow his moves on the drums through action, a real ice breaker for the beginning of an evening and also pulls you back to the rhythms and sounds of Africa, mmmmm. The plastic tubes of various colours and sizes emit different musical pitches, amazing the ‘music’ a group of people can create with a simple plastic tube!
This was followed by traditional boerwors rolls and the beers and wine flowed. The evening was concluded with Charlene giving her final presentation of the tour and as always, her passion, energy and true love for conservation and communities took everyone on a roller coaster ride of the raw beauty of Africa, but also the painful realities of poaching, poverty and environmental destruction that is happening in Southern Africa today. We were presented with a donation of AUS$850 at the end of the evening – thank you to Garth, his energetic team and the members of TIC who made it a memorable final event.
Saturday 12th August
Our final day in Australia. We couldn’t leave Perth without visiting the largest inner city park in the world, Kings Park, bigger than even New Yorks Central Park. It is an ideal place to go for panoramic views across the city, to the hills and down the river. It also houses the main war memorial which contains the names of all soldiers lost during the first and second world wars. The Park’s roads are lined with trees, at the base of which are plaques laid in memory of individual fallen soldiers. The day was spent catching up with friends and family from Zimbabwe and saying out goodbyes.
Sunday 13th August
An amazing six weeks of touring New and Australia has come to an end. We have met so many people along the way and have made connections that will give us a strong foundation to build on for the future and to grow our support base for the Africa Green Fund to support the work of Environment Africa in uplifting the livelihoods of communities in Southern Africa and to conservation of our environment and wildlife.
Thank you to everyone along the way for their generosity and hospitality and who contributed to making this trip so successful. Goodbye Australia and we are so excited to be returning home to our Africa!
Post published in: Environment