Western Australia

I said last week that I'd post more about Perth shortly.. well, here is the card. :) It's a swap with Heather in Western Australia.



I really, really like postcards in this series. I'm not usually too fond of multiviews, but these are great. I think the map certainly helps, but it also doesn't look as stuffed as some other multiviews, and you can still see what's in the pictures.

The top left picture is Perth, again seen from Kings Park. The picture under it shows the Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park. The flat, Kangaroo Paw and Black Swans are emblems of the State of Western Australia.

I had to find out more about the Bungle Bungles; the name alone is so cool and the rocks look very interesting. I found out that Purnululu National Park is a Unesco World Heritage site, located in north east of Western Australia. It contains the deeply dissected Bungle Bungle Range composed of Devonian-age quartz sandstone eroded over a period of 20 million years into a series of beehive-shaped towers or cones, whose steeply sloping surfaces are distinctly marked by regular horizontal bands of dark-grey cyanobacterial crust (single-celled photosynthetic organisms). These outstanding examples of cone karst owe their existence and uniqueness to several interacting geological, biological, erosional and climatic phenomena.



The stamps on the card are gorgeous, too! I wrote earlier that you are only supposed to use "International" stamps for mail sent outside of Australia. However, Heather used these amazing domestic stamps instead. They are from a set of 4 stamps issued last month, celebrating Great Australian Railway Journeys. Australian trains cross the continent east to west and south to north, covering great distances over often isolated and difficult terrain. They also cover much smaller distances in rugged and precipitous mountain country. These trains were once the primary means of linking isolated settlements with more populous centres. These stamps show (from left) The Ghan West Coast Wilderness Railway in Tasmania, and The Indian Pacific. I love it how the value of the stamps are in areas that look like train tickets! :D