We had some toast for breakfast. Then we drove into Perth city. We met Abby in the mall, then we walked to the Perth Mint. We went on a tour. The Perth mint started in 1899, because of the Kalgoorlie gold rush in 1893. One of the first governors of the mint came out from England with his wife, to take on the roll. His wife liked to socialise, but the problem was, her lady friends considered it improper to visit her at the mint, because of all the male workers. So, to fix this problem, the governor would take all the workers down the street to go to the pub for three hours every Tuesday afternoon, so that his wife and her lady friends could drink tea, play croquet and do what ever else they did. Also, at the mint, they had two doors so that the upper class people could walk through one, and the lower class people walk through the other, because the upper class people did not want to walk through the same door as the lower class. The mint is Australia’s oldest operating mint. These days the mint makes specialised coins. At the mint, they have some scales that can convert your weight into how much you are worth in gold. I am worth $2,168,720. On the tour, we watched a gold pour, it was really quite spectacular. The melted gold was glowing, and then it sets hard in a matter of seconds! We went to another sushi train for lunch. There are Japanese restaurants everywhere in Perth! After lunch. We went down to the Perth City and looked in some of the shops. Tess and Dad went to the WA art gallery. We drove through Peppermint Grove, where all the really expensive houses are. There were definitely some big and extravagant houses there! We had some nice fish and chips for dinner!
Tara