Skip to main content

Perth, Western Australia: Gosnells Parks and Railway Markets - Day 11

Fish Mural Art along the front of a garden box near the Agonis Centre Entrance
Gosnells City Council has always been supportive of the arts to the point where
you can see many examples of public art throughout the town centre.

Gosnells the suburb, or even the City of Gosnells, isn't really a destination at the forefront of anyone's mind when visiting Perth. Even now, after so much money has been spent on making pleasing community spaces and facilities, in the 24 years since I moved back to South Australia.

It's certainly a much more pleasant looking place to live now than it was during the years I grew up there, from the age of eight. My family moved there from South Australia (after a brief eight month stay in Kelmscott while we waited for our house in Gosnells to be built) at the beginning of 1978.

Today's plans were for my mum and I to catch up for lunch and do a bit of a walk around Gosnells - where she still lives - though not in the original house we had built, which was sold years ago.

Usually it's a chance for me to see what's changed since the last time I was there, but since it wasn't that long ago, relatively speaking, other than a new community park space, near the railway station, it looked mostly the same.


Dome Cafe

Mum and I walked to the Gosnells Dome Cafe, which is really quite nice inside, with full leather style armchair seats at some tables as well as proper booth seats and couches.

Mum shouted me lunch. We both had ham and cheese toasties with potato chips and tomato salsa dip, along with a cup of tea. I'd definitely recommend it. The food was nice and the dining area makes the whole experience feel more up market than the prices suggest.


The Agonis Centre Clock Tower
The Agonis Centre
Clock Tower.

Agonis Centre

We then walked down to the Agonis centre, which is a bit of a landmark with its fairly modern looking clock tower. Inside, just in front of where the library - sorry, the Knowledge Centre - is, there is a permanent display giving a history of the area. 

Then, out the back of the centre we made our way around, what is a kind of tree top walk, down to the playground, community stage/amphitheatre, and river board walk that is very nice for some light exercise or if you're into nature photography.

Tree top walk way that leads down to the playground behind the Agonis Centre.
Treetop walkway (along the back) that leads down to the playground and
parkland behind the Agonis Centre.


The Gosnells Railway Markets

From there Mum and I made our way back to the Gosnells Railway Market, passing through the new open space park, that wasn't there before, just in front of the railway station.

The Market seemed very empty for a Friday afternoon. Many shops inside were closed and there didn't seem to be much going on in the food hall. Unless the weekends are better I suspect the markets won't be open too many more years (or maybe it will?).

These Markets were actually opened a few years before I left Perth. Not sure of the exact year (1991 I think since that's when the train (image below) was placed inside)? The market did start off strong, with a busy food hall, fruit and veg market, and a good selection of variety stalls selling typical market type items, books, clothing, bric-a-brac etc.

Dd 596 Steam Locomotive inside the Gosnells Railway Market.
This Dd 596 Steam Locomotive sits between the food court and the main market area. It's
representative of the trains that used to travel the line through Gosnells up until 1968.

I think the hope was that they would help make Gosnells a weekend destination (since they are only open Thursday through Sunday). Unfortunately they never really attracted much more than the local market. I think they were hoping for something like The Fremantle Market, which I have never known not to be packed, and challenging just to walk around for the sheer number of shoppers.

As I said, Gosnells is not really a destination anyone thinks of when visiting Perth. Even people who live in the surrounding suburbs, I suspect, rarely ever make Gosnells a destination for a day out.


---o ---o--- o---


Anyway, that was day 11 of my trip to Perth. Mum and I went back to her place to relax with a cup of tea, before I headed off to visit my brother, who lives a suburb over in Maddington, for a couple of hours.

My partner, Enigma, spent the day with my Dad's partner, taking a trip out to Hillary's Boat Harbour, where there is a similar, but more successful market out on the jetty.


Comments

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

Movie Review: Superman (2025) *No Spoilers*

T he one thing I like about James Gunn as a comic book movie director is that he leans into the comic book nature of the world and the characters.  He's not trying to do a realistic take on any of the characters. He's simply bringing the comics to life. It's still his take on the characters, but he doesn't shy away from their comic book origins. James Gunn's  Superman  is very much a comic book movie in every sense. Nothing is off the table because it's too 'comic-booky' and might look silly in a live action film.  To me that's incredibly liberating. It lets James actually tell a proper Superman story that isn't hamstrung by reality, or tip toeing into the fantastical just enough to allow Superman to exist in the real world. Superman begins in the middle of a battle. Metropolis is under attack by a super powered being known as 'Hammer of Boravia', however everything is not as it seems, and Superman (David Corenswet) must work with other s...

James Gunn's Social Media Monkeys Joke Was a Highlight of His Superman Movie For Me

B efore James Gunn's Superman Movie was released there was a whole rumor going around that the movie would feature monkeys on computers trolling Superman's social media, sparking much outrage. #supersh*t. I didn't know this was even a thing until just prior to writing this article. I did a search to see if anyone had posted a clip of the monkeys scene from the movie and got pages of discourse featuring videos and articles prior to the film. Most of it from Gunn detractors (let's say) seeing it as some kind of childish swipe at them... well not them specifically but, you know, those other people who have every right to hate on anything sight unseen. Anyway, I'm not going to give even one such example a link or air because it's kind of sad watching someone devote so much commentary to a throw away gag that is absolutely a nod to James Gunn's Superman trolls.  The whole reason this post exists, is to say I loved the joke, because fourteen years ago, and I...

Movie Review: A Complete Unknown (2024) *No Spoilers*

Y ou would think the Bob Dylan story would be 'wind-swept and interesting,' to quote Billy Connelly, however, despite  A Complete Unknown  being quite an engaging film, it feels like it missed the years that really shaped him as a song writer/performer. The film starts in 1961, with a then unknown, 19-year-old Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arriving in New York City with his guitar.  From there he forges relationships with musical icons on his meteoric rise, culminating in a groundbreaking performance that reverberates around the world. The problem being, according to this film, Dylan arrived in New York, for the most part, fully formed as a folk singer/song writer. In virtually no time he makes a very important connection that puts him on the trajectory of doing the work and becoming a name, before making his world changing performance. While there is some drama behind the scenes with his various relationships, none of it is particularly unique to any number of up and com...

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices.  My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe?  Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

I'm Joining the Illuminati Brotherhood By Personal Invitation of Hiltom Rothschild... Wait, What?

How special am I to have finally come of age (53 years young) and am now eligible to participate in building the world alongside other members of the Illuminati Brotherhood... Yes I've received the call by way of an email, which I'm sure is real because I had to translate it from the Dutch language and it was personally written by Hiltom Rothschild, one of the non-existent members of the Rothschild family (or perhaps deep undercover because Google has never heard of them?). A Transcript of the email below: To: etourist From: Illuminati Brotherhood  Subject: Illuminati Broederschap (Illuminati Brotherhood) I am Hiltom Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild family, one of the 13 families of the Illuminati brotherhood. I'm here to let you know that you've come of age and are eligible to participate in building the 🌎 world. It is a calling and a privilege to honor him with pride and gratitude as not everyone will ever be chosen by the LIGHT, many are called but few are ch...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - World's Most Boring Government Re-elected by Landside - We're Even More Fine!

Anthony Albanese Victory by ChatGPT and TET. W hen I started writing about the 2025 Federal election the polls were suggesting the world's most boring government was crusing to a defeat . As it turns out, boring is good, and Australia wants more of it, handing the current government a landslide win with a majority vote. Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win a consecutive term, and the first Labor PM since Bob Hawke to do so. Some of that comes down to the leadership revolving door both major parties had through the mid 2000s. Although Anthony is my preferred PM over Dutton the irony is Dutton sounds more like a leader with a fairly commanding voice and an ability to speak well, without sounding like he's waffling and dodging questions, even if he is. Anthony, on the other hand, does have the ability (and speech writer) to say a lot of inspiring things but it gets lost in the delivery. He doesn't seem to know when to emphasise a point for effect. In h...

Unitree's R1 Humanoid Robot Brings the Cost of Advanced Robotics Hardware Down to Less Than USD$6000 (Robot Uprising Update)

Unitree's R1 Humanoid Robot. The first humaniod robot prices under USD$6000. C hinese robotics developer, Unitree, has launched the  Unitree R1 Robot , an advanced humanoid machine, for under USD$6000. Standing at 5'5", this very agile robot walks with a very natural 'human' gait, and can easily perform cartwheels or get up from a fall. It is controlled by AI and is capable of conversation but also comes with a remote control (so you can turn it off if it starts asking about someone named 'Sarah Connor'). Rather than me describe it, watch AI Revolution's video (below) to see it in action and hear their take on why this robot is a big deal. China’s New AI Robot Is So Good and Cheap It’s Scary: Unitree R1  -  AI Revolution You'll notice that the robot doesn't have proper, human like hands, but apparently this is an option you can purchase as an extra (dexterous hands are listed as 'optional' on educational versions of the robot on Unitree...