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Published: August 11th 2012
Bon Scott
Statue in FremantleDay 1359
Ok, so while the apparently “better half” of Kangaroo Jack is “bustin’” his “chops” some of us are languishing in the privilege of adding more travel to the agenda, whilst I was in Fiji we had decided that I should join him whilst he is working away. After all, when else will I get this golden opportunity as I am planning on picking up the “W” word when we return from England in late September.
I spent a couple of days in Sydney, thank you to Jan and Ted once again for their kind hospitality, whilst there I managed to catch up with Richard Cordukes, it was Richard’s (cough, cough) birthday and despite Andy not being able to attend I decided that I should still go. Some of you regular readers will remember we met Richard on our original journey around Australia, Richard is an Australian Paralympic athlete, who competed at the 1988 Seoul Paralympics. The party was a pirate theme and Richard was well into it and somehow managed to look like Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow!
Back in Canberra I arrived at the airport with no one to
meet me and grabbed a taxi back to our empty and very tidy apartment that Andy had left only a few days earlier.
My first action was to open my suitcase and start to empty the contents, in particular get the washing machine on the go, I have only 2 days to get unpacked, washed, ironed and repacked. In the meantime I needed to plan my trip and book my flights as I aimed to be on the evening flight out of Canberra on the Tuesday.
I even managed to get a walk in around Lake Burley Griffin on the Monday afternoon, it was a beautiful day, the fountain was on for a change and the water was being blown across the path. I had seen a couple of people jog through and it really didn’t worry me at all, until I got into it and realised how cold the water was! I decided to jog through; I even put the sleeve of my fleece across my face as my left cheek felt frozen with the cold water. It is hard to describe how that truly feels but my word it was cold.
Before joining Andy I had decided to spend a few days in Perth, the remotest city in the world and a trip over here would not be right without seeing Cliff and Sue and who also very kindly put me up for a couple of nights.
I awoke early at their house in Scarborough Beach and helped myself to a cup of tea, unusually for me I felt very awake at that time of morning and it was a pleasure to enjoy that time of the morning.
Cliff and Sue very kindly took me out and about for the day, we had an explore up the coast, looking at some of the most fabulous mansions and sea front dwellings that had been built along the way.
We stopped at Hilary’s Marina for lunch at a terrific restaurant called Bella’s were my terrific pizza was accompanied by a bottle of Riesling. We walked around the Marina afterwards, it was very quiet but then being a weekday was perhaps expected. It was a beautiful sunny day, too warm to wear a coat. The water in the marina was absolutely crystal clear
and despite the number of boats there was barely a sign of pollution.
The water looked good enough to jump in but seriously I am not sure that the temperature would have been favourable even though a beautiful sunny day, it is still winter here.
Back on the road and we find ourselves heading towards Fremantle, otherwise known as “Freo” to most Australians, located at the mouth of the Swan River, and is the main port for Perth. Andy and I came here before when we were on our travels and this is also where Andy had his didgeridoo lesson.
Last time we were here we did not get to see the one thing that Andy really wanted to and that was the statue of Bon Scott (Ronald Belford Scott), lead singer of ACDC, who died during the “Highway to Hell” tour in London in 1980. Well today I managed to see it and probably annoyingly for Andy realised it was a stone’s throw from where we sat and had a coffee all that time ago.
Being here has also cleared up a little mystery for me, the
Perth Wheel, when we came here back in 2009 the Perth Wheel was located near the Bell Tower (I had photographs to prove its location), well when I was here on business back in February this year I could not find the wheel and wondered what had happened to it and here it is in on The Esplanade in Freemantle near Bon Scott’s statue In the Fishing Boat Harbour!
Going on to the Roundhouse which is located at Arthur Head, which was built to house prisoners with 8 cells and a jailers residence, used until 1886, it was too small for all the British convicts and was replaced by Fremantle Prison. The Roundhouse then became a police lock up until 1900 when it became living quarters for the Chief Constable and his family. This is open to the public and entry is a gold coin donation.
Here Cliff explained to me about “The Purple Circle”, apart from another more onerous meaning which I won’t mention here, the definition of the purple circle is “an elite group of people who congregate to the exclusion of others in a workplace or institution”. The saying apparently is
derivative from here as the jailers used to wear purple sash’s, and if you were a prisoner that was on good terms with the jailer the prisoners used to refer to them as being in “The Purple Circle”. I am happy to be corrected on this, I have tried to research on the internet, but nothing is forthcoming.
On to Rouse Head and a drive down to the end of the pier, where there were plenty of fishermen braving the strong wind, we watched the sun start to go down and a few boats that were coming in and out of the harbour, before heading back home for a nice cup of tea and a rest.
None of us were hungry after the big lunch at Bella’s so we just had tea and biscuits whilst catching up on the Olympics, an early night was in order for all, Cliff had an early flight in the morning as he was returning to his rig and Sue had to drop him off at the airport.
Thursday morning, although time to say my farewells to Sue, we had time to head out for a
hearty breakfast along the seafront at Scarborough, later that morning, June came to collect me and take me down to her and Rob’s place at Hall’s Head.
June and Rob are friends of ours and we had met them through work, although I had not actually “met” June before, we had just spoken on the telephone, but she very kindly offered me a place to stay while in Perth, you may remember from Andy’s blog’s, he had stayed with June an Rob at their home on Christmas Island.
Halls Head is about a 1 hour drive South of Perth, near Mandurah, we could see the rain coming across from the Ocean on the drive down and that night the wind howled and the rain poured, however the Friday morning we awoke to beautiful sunshine and a very calm day.
After breakfast, June and I had gone for a walk along the beach front, no need for a jacket this morning, it was warm already! Following that we headed up to Mandurah for a look around on the way taking in the area around the canals, it was beautiful and I am
pretty sure that a couple of million dollars would have secured a nice little property with its own mooring.
A long lunch at Dolphin Quay, sitting in the sunshine was bliss, but it was soon time to get ready and head into Perth to meet up with Rob and some other friends for dinner.
Before dinner June took me to Harbour Town for a look around the shops and then we headed back into the city to meet our friends at the Belgian Beer Café before heading to 1907 for dinner.
It was late when we got back and we were all tired, so it was straight to bed as we all needed to get up early as Rob and June were dropping me at the airport in the morning for my next flight to Broome.
Sweet dreams.
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littlewing
Cindy
The purple circle
Hi Caroline - my dad is a tourguide at the round house, I will ask him about the purple circle for you :) glad you enjoyed Freo, its a great place.