Friday, 23-Feb-2007: Late afternoon, Keith and I return to his home. He's invited me to accompany Fhines and himself to a barbeque in Freemantle. Before we leave, Anthony comes in for a while and, whilst trying to show him my photographs of the day, something nasty happens and the picture storage card becomes unreadable. I'll wait 'till I return to the U.K. to see if we can recover this series of photographs.
Postscript: After a bit of research on my return, I purchased Stellar Phoenix FAT & NTFS which successfully recovered all the photographs.
As you might imagine, there's a lot of interest in the marine in Perth, and the barbeque is for members of the steam boat fraternity, hosted by Bill Atterton, an enthusiast with a garage containing a diesel-fired steam boiler connected to a beautiful 2-cylinder compound launch steam engine which he rescued. There are a couple of the ever-popular 'Seagull' outboards on display and two other enthusiasts have brought along launch-type steam engines which they have built for the rest to study. A pleasant couple of hours is spent eating, drinking and talking about steam, steam engines and, occasionally, locomotives. Our host then 'brews-up' and runs his engine, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. Keith and Fhines return me to my hotel in Perth and, with reluctance, we say goodbye for this visit. I'm grateful to Keith and all his friends for making my stay in Perth so memorable.
Saturday, 24-Feb-2007: I get up fairly early and start my packing. By 6:10, I'm walking to the station for one last trip on the Midland electric suburban line to its terminus at Midland. I see the remains of the old locomotive works, check out the dual-gauge trackwork in this vicinity, walk round part of the town, examine a preserved 'Dubs' 4-4-0 and watch a very lengthy diesel-hauled standard-gauge freight rumble through towards Perth. On the way back to the city, we pass the railway museum at Bassendean and the standard-gauge inter-state passenger terminal at East Perth.
Back to the hotel, my last buffet breakfast followed by a short walk to the Swan River, check out and to the airport.
My pictures
Perth (Western Australia) Railway pictures.
