Fremantle - Doing Time

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Today we decided to take a short rail journey to Fremantle, a bustling port city. Just 30 minutes along the Swan River from Perth - the largest port in WA. We walked past the famous cappuccino strip and many boutique pubs and headed straight for the market. The market had lots a great bush crafts, clothing and a huge selection of food - a great veggie selection. We decided we could not resist the lemon, cinnamon and sugar crepes. Then as we headed outside we managed to catch a street performer from Nz performing on a huge one wheeled bike, juggling fire whilst wearing a blindfold.

We then went down towards the harbour where a boat festival was taking place. We shared some fish and chips at Joe's Fish Shack, and then had a tour around some of the yachts for sale - tempting. After we visited the Little Creatures Brewery and sampled some Rogers Amber Ale and Bright Ale. We saw lots of birdlife next to the harbour, more white cockatoos and pelicans.

Next we visited Freo prison for a very informative 'Doing Time' tour around the prison cells, which was in use between 1850's to 1991. The prison is the largest convict built structure in WA and the most intact convict establishment in the entire country. The prison was still in use up to 1991, prior to a riot taking place damaging a huge part of the Jarra roof, and due to the unhygienic conditions (no toilets just buckets).

The British sent many of their prisoners over here due to the overcrowding in their prisons. Many of the prisoners started up an occupation or learnt a new craft. Some had painted beautiful aboriginal paintings & artwork within their cells - still visible today. The tour also included the execution chamber which was quite eerie, & included the C&E church where the prisoners could choose whether or not to attend. We highly recommend this tour as it is fascinating walking around the prison division sections particularly as they were still in use until fairly recently. It is also possible to do a tunnel & torchlight tour - but these need to be booked in advance.

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Comments

[thellyjean]

Great !
Congratulations on a really good Blog. I enjoyed reading about your tours around WA