January 17^th 2017 Perth

Sheila and I headed into Perth to check out the Perth Mint and find out what happens to the gold that comes from Kalgoorlie.

To get into Perth we cycled along the coast into Fremantle and then caught the train. In Perth we took the Red CAT free bus to the Mint.  The Mint offer tours and we bought a snack first in their café and awaited the start of the tour.

Perth Mint

It turns out that the Perth Mint is no longer taking the bulk of the gold from Kalgoorlie and the other gold mining areas in Australia to create the gold bullions. This is now undertaken at a facility at Perth airport. The Mint in Perth manufactures special coins for various occasions as well as buying and selling gold and acting as a depository for people investing in gold.

The building houses a number of gold exhibits including the largest gold coin in the world, which weighs in at 1 tonne (1012 kgs) and is 80cm diameter and 12 cm thick. The current value is around $57 million.

Two sides of the 1 tonne coin

We also took the opportunity to measure our weights in terms of gold value. Mine and Sheila’s weight equivalents in gold value was around $4M and $3M respectively – definitely undervalued!

The tour also included a demonstration of a gold ingot being poured from a crucible of molten gold.

Crucible full of gold

Resulting gold ingot

From the Mint we strolled down to the waterfront and along to the Bell Tower.   

#

Bell Tower

We spotted a few brown and moon jelly fish in the water as we had done two years previously, although not so many.

Moon Jelly Fish (side view)

Brown Jelly Fish

We were surprised to see building work still being undertaken on the waterfront north of the tower. We learnt later that we should have walked around these works to see the new Elizabeth Quay, although I noted later that both Google Maps and the Bing Maps still show the area as under change.

We headed back to the apartment and did a spot of ironing and packing in preparation for our flights the following day as well as emptying the car of Phil and Becks’ windsurfing kit.

In the evening we had our final meal with Phil and Becks at the Char Char Bull Restaurant in Fremantle.