Lap Around Australia: Perth Hills

Exploring the Perth Hills

The caravan park we've been staying at in Perth is located up in the hills. It's a pretty area...and worth exploring more closely...especially as we're so close by. Karen and Kathy had told us about Kalamunda Historic Village and the Zig Zag Gallery. It looked so good in their photos we just had to have a look for ourselves. It's only a ten minute drive from Forrestfield and when we arrived at Kalamunda we were very disappointed to discover that the Zig Zag Gallery was temporarily closed while they dismantled the gorgeous textile exhibition that Karen had seen. I'll include some of Karen's photos here especially for Susan, who I know would've loved it as much as me.

Never mind. At least the historic village was open, Lucky us...we got to share it with a whole pile of Lower Primary School aged children too who were very excited to be on an outing. I don't know how much they would've got out of the experience. The girls seemed more interested in skipping around and the boys were running around shouting loudly to each other. They did get a kick out of seeing the old outside "Thunderbox" dunny complete with newspaper loo paper and red-back spider on the toilet seat.

 

John and I wandered around looking through all the old buildings which were rather well done and well presented. We seem to be learning a lot of history this trip and that's no bad thing. There was quite a bit of sawmilling and logging done in the local area too, and it was interesting to see how they managed to cut and cart the huge logs.

After we'd spent a few hours here we decided to have a look at Lesmurdie Falls which are also near here. They are situated in the Lesmurdie National Park and the houses surrounding the park have some amazing views over the falls and beyond to the City of Perth high-rises.

We walked through some beautiful natural bushland full of native wildflowers still in bloom. That alone was worth coming here for. But the views and the waterfall were magnificent! We even caught sight of a black lizard that we identified as a Great Skink.

We'll be sad to leave Perth. There's certainly lots more to see and Barb has family and old friends here that this brief visit didn't allow us time to see. We'll be back!