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7 8 11 Today the prison cells are used as tourist accommodation. Rottnest is both present paradise and past pain. is pretty relaxed here,” the guy opposite says, as he leans over and helps himself to one of my tapas. There’s a consensus of nods. I say, “But something I’ve found interesting is that almost every day I’ve come across some historical reference to the treatment of the Aborigines.” “Maybe the thinking is, if it’s out in the open it will somehow right itself,” says a woman at my shoulder. She looks at me sideways. “So...what references have you seen?” “Well, for example, the dotted red line.” “Eh?” I was circumnavigating a construction site when I discovered it. I was walking to Elizabeth Quay, having just arrived. The evening was like a soft whisper, the colour undecided, with lights just beginning to glow, and the Swan River was serene and flat with an occasional long, lazy ripple trailing behind a black swan. The glass spire on the Bell Tower glowed an aquarium green and the copper facade emanated a Florentine warmth. I couldn’t see the Swan Bells but I knew they rang at the time Captain Cook left England, marking the voyage that discovered Australia: several hundred years of historical ringing cocooned in a modern millennial skin. A snaking pedestrian bridge, reaching over the water, has two dramatic supports like gigantic bows pulled taut. I stopped mid-span to listen to a busking guitarist and then headed to the nearby building site. A poster announced the construction of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, together with exclusive apartments and shops. Renderings depicted four huge towers – modern glass oval-shaped architecture like something you’d expect in Dubai, shimmering and beckoning, with tourist-enticing luxury and style. Tourism is Perth’s new cash crop, a post-mining economic contingency plan, and Elizabeth Quay is the heart for the restless pulse of tourists. I saw another poster stuck to the hoarding: a survey map showing central Perth in about 1900, with rows of neat little rectangles, each a building surrounded by roads and the harbour, and then this – covering several blocks was a dotted red line. It read: Prohibited Area, 1927–1954. For nearly 30 years, the very location where I stood was an area forbidden to Aborigines. I was left with this odd incongruity between the public announcement of this mal du siècle and the rise of the Ritz. Fluttering pink petals surround tiny buttons of red mounted atop lime green stems that sway to the warm breeze in Kings Park, Perth’s central-city nature haven. If I were an artist, this would be my palette. Kings Park comprises manicured gardens and wild vegetation, the wind meshing the colours into a wash of pastel pink, or lemon yellow... the list goes on. The place is full of meandering people, each seeking their own catharsis through nature. ▲ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, an eum nonumes vulputate assueverit, clita dicant lucilius mel ne, ius ex aperiri veritus vivendo. Vix at dicant ponderum, atqui solet commodo ex cum. Nominati persecuti cu vis, id quas aliquando pro. Vero viris discere ea mei. Id qui possim necessitatibus, in utinam facilis atqui solet commodo ex cum. Nominati persecuti cu vis, id quas aliquando pro. Vero viris discere evix, id mei reque quodsi luptatum. Adhuc commodo hendrerit in eam, dicunt diceret id duo. 10 9 80 thisnzlife.co.nz NZ Life & Leisure 81
12 How to get there etc Getting there: Air New Zealand flies directly to Perth from Auckland and Christchurch. Accommodation: In central Perth, the Terrace Hotel offers stunning boutique accommodation in a restored historic building. Check out the unusual artworks, and the very good restaurant. In Fremantle the Hougoumont is a small modern hotel with a history of the ship scattered throughout. There’s no restaurant but plenty of nearby eateries. Must do: Book a walking and bar tour with Two Feet & A Heart Beat and find out everything you’ll ever want to know about Perth and its bars and restaurants, twofeet.com.au Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, an eum nonumes vulputate assueverit, clita dicant lucilius mel ne, ius ex aperiri veritus vivendo. Vix at dicant ponderum, atqui solet commodo ex cum. Nominati persecuti cu vis, id quas aliquando pro. Vero viris discere ea mei. Id qui possim necessitatibufhv vbdfw hhfwd fmjjdhf ehfdkjs, in utinam facilis vix, id mei reque quodsi luptatum. Adhuc commodo hendrerit in eam, dicunt diceret id duo. Wild flowers. Freshly mown grass. Tree bark. Raked earth. Garden scents. I amble over a high arching bridge – a dramatic curvaceous construction spanning a gully – and the quintessential Australian scent of eucalyptus wafts upwards. The views stretch towards the harbour. Actually, it’s more waterfront than harbour, on account of the fact that in parts it’s only four metres deep. If I were a sculptor, here is where I would find inspiration. I am looking for a “sculpture”, one that has traveled 3000 kilometres to get here. It once stood in a location 15 13 now covered with tarmac and whizzing cars. Its form is distinctly prehistoric – a throwback, as it were. It is a boab tree, a cousin to the baobabs of Madagascar, that bizarre-looking tree with its bulbous trunk and root-like canopy. The specimen I see here is divided in two, joined at the hip like conjoined twins. In 2008, after 750 years in the same home, it was served an eviction notice in favour of a motorway and relocated to Kings Park. Wadjemup. I step off the ferry onto a Greek island that got lost and ended up anchoring off the coast of Fremantle: a panorama with diverse wildlife and enticing lagoons of white sand and startling Mediterranean-blue waters, caused by leaching limestone. Some 500,000 visitors annually know this place as Rottnest, derived from rat nest, the rather unfortunate name given by the Dutch, who dimwittedly mistook quokkas, those cute soft toy-like nocturnal marsupials that little kids want to take to bed, for giant rats. An estimated 8000 quokkas reside on the island. I am here to indulge in nature, to see the magnificent regal osprey, that monogamous raptor that returns yearly to its giant nest, and the gulls that persistently battle warm gusts of wind on stony outcrops... I’m sorry. I know it’s an interruption to this romp through an island paradise, but I’m also here to see Rottnest’s underbelly. In a small museum hangs an extraordinary series of faded sepiatoned images. A quick glance and you can see immediately this isn’t good. Groups of linked together, chainedby-the-neck Aborigines, each with a padlock just under their chin. They are lean and tall and stand strikingly erect. In one way they are regal but at the same time they appear blank, impassive, empty vessels. Each wears a loincloth. Some have swollen bellies like malnourished children, lined with a series of patterned scars. Theirs is another culture, one that operated by different rules than the colonizers, and for this they are prisoners. Rottnest, once an Aboriginal prison, housed 3500 prisoners. Several hundred of them died and are buried on the island. Today the prison cells are used as tourist accommodation. Rottnest is both present paradise and past pain. And for the Aborigines, perhaps it was little more than a rat nest. I’m perched at a long wooden bar in Varnish on King, a suave joint in a basement on King Street, part of Perth’s burgeoning culture of specialty bourbon bars. In front of me is a sampling of four bourbons. “Start with the George Dickel No 12, with speck,” says the bar lady. “Enjoy.” 16 Indeed I do. Feeling mellow, and with a gentle glow emanating from the midsection – part-bourbon, part-travel euphoria – I slip into the Perth evening, feeling sure this would not be the last time I’d meet Mr Dickel... or Perth. 82 thisnzlife.co.nz NZ Life & Leisure 83
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