Fremantle Visit

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Before I begin, I will amend my blog from yesterday. It has been brought to my attention that the picture of the quokka had nothing for scale, so I should have said that these guys are about the size of a large house cat. OK, now on to today! I spent the day in Fremantle, the city at the mouth of the Swan River and about half an hour from Perth. After figuring out the ticketing system for the Perth trains - not as tourist-friendly as the buses - I hopped on the train to Fremantle and my first stop after arrival was a cafe on Cappuccino Strip (see photo). The cappuccino was not as good as the ones Maggie and I had in Sydney. Maybe that is because I missed Maggie's company and the view of Circular Quay! I read the newspaper while I sipped the coffee and then walked to the old Fremantle Prison which housed convicts from 1859-1991. It now has tours and I have to admit that it was interesting to go through it. I have been to Alcatraz (on a tour, in case you were wondering). Fremantle Prison seems much larger overall, but the cell blocks looked about the same. There was a game of Australian Rules Football going on at The Oval. I paused to watch for a short time, but I really couldn't follow it. All I can say is that it involves kicking the ball frequently. Next stop was the Fishing Boat Harbour for lunch. Cicerello's is famous for fish & chips, so that is what I had there. It came wrapped in paper and was very good - the best fish & chips I have had in a long time. The only drawback to my lunch was the necessity of protecting it from the voracious seagulls. BTW, the statue in the picture of the harbor is Bon Scott, a singer for the band AC/DC who was from Fremantle and died a few years ago. Suitably fueled with deep-fried calories, I walked to the Shipwreck Galleries which is actually a museum that houses displays about shipwrecks. The western shore of Australia used to see a lot of shipwrecks, particularly in the Age of Exploration. Here is a photo of me standing in front of part of the hull of the Batavia, a Dutch ship that went down in 1629. Sailing vessels still ply the waters off the coast of Fremantle (see photo) and I still pinch myself when I realize that this is the Indian Ocean. My last stop of the day was the Western Australia Maritime Museum. I took a tour of the decommissioned submarine Ovens. The old submariner who gave the tour was interesting and gave us a feel for what life was like aboard the vessel as well as the statistics on it. The Ovens could stay submerged for up to nine days, living on battery power, before it had to surface and run the diesel engines to charge the batteries. After the tour, I had just enough time to walk quickly through the Maritime Museum itself to see Australia II, the racing yacht that won the America's Cup in 1983. It is the boat on the right of the picture and you can see the shape of the revolutionary keel in the photo. I took the train back to Perth and had a beer at the pub around the corner while I looked through my photos for the day and wrote this blog.

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