Her name is Freo

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Fremantle is Perth's port, situated just 25 minutes away from Perth by train. If the world at large knows anything about Freo, it's that it was the home port for Australia II, first non-American winner of the America's Cup (and another venture backed by Alan Bond). Its history includes being the site where many immigrants first set foot on Australian soil and even today it is Western Australia's main commercial port. Though Perth has sprawled to the point where its suburbs meet Freo, the residents of Fremantle are quite keen to maintain a separate identity from their Perthian neighbours - in much the same way as Western Australia views the rest of the country.

To me, Freo also meant the current abode of one Mr Gavin Corfield, aka Garfield, a friend from my university days, his partner Lee, and their 1 year old boy Arlo. I hadn't seen Garfield for nearly 10 years, with pretty much my last sighting of him being while stirring a cauldron of baked beans in a youth hostel near Sheffield, during which time he had emigrated to Australia, changed careers, and become a family man. E-mails had sporadically been exchanged, but we hadn't been closer than 8 hours flying time at any point since his emigration so there had been no opportunities to meet up until now.

The RG had mentioned glowingly the "Fremantle Doctor", a sea breeze that in summer helps keep the temperatures at a more acceptable level than in Perth. During the winter, however, this seemed to equate to keeping the temperature a little chilly with the imminent threat of rain, so I was viewing the skies with displeasure when I alighted from the train. Garfield materialised shortly after, and had barely changed at all, though his hair was a little more bouffant. We first went to a local institution called Gino's on Capuccino Strip, a street that's positively Mediterranean in its profusion of sidewalk cafes, which seemed to contain the entire population of Fremantle. Apparently the order that you give is reflected in the positioning of the spoon and coffee beans that the serving staff lay out. With almost a decade of news to catch up on, the sound of reminiscing English voices did not let up for most of the day.

After our caffeine, Garf then gave me an insider's tour of Freo. Like Kalgoorlie, many of the facades of the older buildings have been retained even if their purpose is now different. We stopped for a quick beer at a pub called Little Creatures, which used to be a crocodile farm, where Garf filled in some of the (many) gaps in my Aussie Rules knowledge. We then met up with Lee and Arlo at Clancy's Fish Bar, which was clearly a favourite with families judging by the number of little people running around. Arlo distinguished himself with his exemplary behaviour and, after lunch, we sat on the grass in a park (the weather having perked up by this point) before heading back to the Garfield family home.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with attempting to get Arlo drowsy enough for a 6PM bedtime, a daily task that I'm grateful isn't part of my own routine. Once he was tucked up in bed, I was treated to a roast beef dinner, which was the first one I've had in years. After some more chat, we tiptoed out of the house and Garf dropped me off at the station. It's always good when you can meet up with someone after such a long time and slip into a conversation as though the intervening period had been mere minutes rather than years. I subsequently met up with Garf twice more for lunch in Perth - hopefully it won't be another decade before I see him, Lee, and Arlo again.

I returned to Freo a couple of days later to do the touristy stuff. First stop was the Western Australia Maritime Museum, a Sydney Opera House lookalike on the quayside. Amongst numerous other exhibits, this contained the boat Australia II, of America's Cup fame, as well as a selection of photos by Frank Hurley, who is an historical figure I have an interest in due to his work in the Antarctic, in particular the classic images he took on Shackleton's ill-fated Endurance expedition.

Outside of the museum were several rows of metal hoardings listing some of the names of the many immigrants who had arrived here on various ships over the years. I think you could get your, or your ancestors', names added for a small fee.

Next was Fremantle Prison, which was operating as a prison as recently as 1991 but is now run by the government as a tourist attraction. The guide was extremely knowledgeable (though I didn't dare ask if he had been an inmate), but his constant stream of weak jokes, all delivered deadpan, had me groaning to myself, and the Swiss couple that were also on the tour looked increasingly blank. He did make an effort to portray the prison as a terrible and mysterious place, with one of his anecdotes concerning a malformed pane of glass in one of the chapel windows that supposedly has a silhouette resembling the only woman to be executed at the prison. Apparently the toilet bucket in cell 11 of the solitary confinement block is also prone to throwing itself around on occasion.

Seeing the gallows was what really brought home the fact that this had once been a place of punishment. In total, 44 people were executed at the prison with the last being in 1964, though capital punishment only came off the statutes book in 1984. Depending on the knot used in the noose, the victim can either die quickly through having their neck broken, or more slowly due to suffocation.

Continuing on this ghoulish theme, I then paid a visit to the Shipwreck Museum. The centrepiece of the museum is part of the preserved wreck of the Batavia, a Dutch ship that had foundered off the coast of Geraldton nearly 400 years ago. This had its own gruesome little story. After helping evacuate the ship's crew to a sandbank, the senior officers set off by boat to find help, leaving over 250 survivors to fend for themselves in the meantime. One of the survivors, Jeronimus Cornelisz, had already been mulling over a plan to take control of the ship and steal its cargo (part of which was gold and silver), and with the senior officers now gone, he put this into effect. Using his powers of persuasion, he convinced a number of men from the ship, led by one Wiebbe Hayes, to go and search for drinking water on a nearby island - while they were away, he persuaded a number of the other men to buy into his scheme, which involved murdering almost half the remaining survivors. Wiebbe Hayes figured out what was going on, and he and his men remained on their own island, repulsing several attacks by Cornelisz's men before the rescue boat returned after 3.5 months. Cornelisz and most of his lieutenants were executed in various ways that made the noose in Fremantle Prison seem positively humane by comparison. 2 of them were marooned on the shore, with the intention that they would die of starvation/thirst/koala attack, but as subsequently some suspiciously light-skinned Aborigines were to be found in that area, it may well have been that they survived and mingled with the locals.

One final coffee on Capuccino Strip, and then it was back to the big metropolis of Perth.

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Photos

Australia II
First non-American winner of the America's Cup

Fremantle Prison
The end of the line

Australia II
THAT keel

Painting in Fremantle Prison cell
Seriously

Fremantle Prison
Solitary confinement wing

Capuccino Strip
Aka South Terrace