The Golden West

I don't imagine that there are many finer cities in Australia's than Perth. I stepped out into a beautifully sunny and warm day. I always imagined that Perth has this kind of weather year-round. That's a fallacy of course, but it was nice to have a wish granted anyway.

As is my custom, I spent my first day exploring the city. Through the many skyscrapers I made my way to the Swan Bells, a bell tower built to house bells from London's St. Martin in the Fields. It's certainly one of Perth most architecturally distinctive edifices, a towering spire of glass. I paid the admission and walked up the stairs to the ringing room where a ringing demonstration was under way. There's an art to ringing bells beyond mere brute strength. You have to stop the bell part way through its swing so that the clapper can make contact with the side. Not much strength is required to produce sounds on even very large bells but in order to make tunes more or less strength may be required in order to make the bells sound in correct time. After the demonstration all participants got to ring some bells, including myself. It was quite an experience to make music on a such a large instrument.

The Swan Bells were moved from their original home in London after it was decided that new bells were needed; these had been cast in the 1720s. Instead of melting them down they were given to Perth in 1988 to celebrated the bicentennial of European colonization in Australia. I think Perth has done admirably in giving the bells a great new home.

In case anyone ever asks you, the art of bell ringing is known as "campanology", named for the Campania region of Italy. Bell ringing sequences are given unusual names such as a Reverse Canterbury Pleasure. Also, just so you know, a peal of bells is ringing through all possible combinations; therefore, a set of 6 bells will have to be rung through all 720 combinations (6!=6x5x4x3x2x1) while 12 bells have 479 001 600 possible combinations that must be rung for a true peal!

After I'd finished with the bells, I explored the rest of the tower. The great thing about this place is that you can see how everything works. Just above the ringing room is the belfry and you can watch the bells swinging. Above that there's a small museum dedicated to the history of bells and then there's an observation deck.

Happy with the Swan Bells, I marched a little more around the city and found the grounds of Government House, the residence of the state Governor, open. It's an unusual house that recalls the architecture of the Tower of London but the grounds are well-kept. Like most old government buildings, Government House is on a large plot surrounded by skyscrapers and busy commercial land.

I was quite tired after all this walking so I decided to return to the youth hostel to rest up. I met my other roommates, one of whom was Irish while the other two were German. In my opinion, German is the most common language spoken in Australian youth hostels after English. I don't know why Germans seem to be such a large portion of the backpacker population Down Under, but there you go. The trip I had planned for the next day I expected would be quite interesting as I would be travelling to Fremantle, Perth's port city.