"Freo" as the locals call it...

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Fremantle

Saturday 24th
Awake 9am, nearly the first - again trying to find everything in the dark and I didn't even leave it all ready today! By 10am nearly ready to leave, book my shuttle to the airport for Monday, check my destination before getting to the train station just in time for the train (there's one every 15 minutes so not that unusual) - $3.40 for a single (concession didn't seem to apply), 1/2 hour to Fremantle on a clean train which feels more like being on the Tube.

Have no grand plan for Fremantle but want to see the prison and some of the old buildings so head through the middle and find the prison. Decide not to bother with the Tunnels tour but to come back 330 for the main tour followed by the 'Escapes' tour - not bad about GBP8 for 2.5 hours. Head back towards the seafront via Fremantle Markets (bit like Covent Garden), and watch some street entertainers. My other 'tick off the list' was fish & chips on the seafront - heading for Joe's, but just past is Ciprinello's which looks great so I go there. $11.45 and is delicious (if rather big!). Quickly nip into 'Little Creatures' micro-brewery which has a great reputation and can taste all 4 beers. Think could drink all of them which is a surprise (not as nice as port, but...), and plan is to come back here for dinner in the evening.

Now time to go back to the prison. First tour is 6 of us and gives us lots of information about the prison from 1800s through to 1991 when it was decommissioned - partly because it was the last prison in Australia with only cell-buckets for toilets (and after a riot which proved more modern facilities were needed). We saw exercise yards (with razor wire - nasty!), variety of cells (over the ages) which included some artwork, the chapel (with curtained rooms at the back for sex-offenders, etc, and a top-gallery for the women), the punishment block (including the hang-room, where the gallows is burnt after every death to ensure that whether the prisoner has repented or not they don't get hung by the same rope as someone who hasn't). The second tour, I'm the only one, so I see a variety of escape-attempts, some more artwork, some different cells, and an overview. I see the 'New Block' (built 50 years after the other) where death row inmates were housed (no cell number 16 as the 6 represents a noose and the 1 the hang-man) which is now leased out cell-by-cell to businesses (usually start-ups)... Interesting idea. We then see the women's prison which is now an art college and finally a deep gouge in the wall where 3 prisoners escaped, well, the last one who'd made himself an extra uniform in the tailor's shed had made the crotch too low so couldn't jump and landed on the tap making a deep gouge. One of those who DID escape, 'the Postcard Bandit' (sent photos to the Police after each robbery and postcards after escapes), was still on the run when prison tours started, came to visit/see where he escaped and wrote in the comments book. He has since been captured and is in prison in Queensland.

After this, is nearly 6pm, quite tired so sit in the park for an hour and try and work out what I've spent in Australia! Walk to the brewery but still not hungry, it's full of people in nice clothes (although sure that doesn't matter) and decide am not in the mood so find Bathers Beach and sit and watch the sunset (again!) as I write this up. Like to get back in time to sort my washing!

Well, I made it back in time, then decided to go out for a drink with the hostel guys - thought we were going round the corner, but we walked for 15-20 minutes across Northbridge which was getting rowdier and louder by the minute to get to the Elephant and Wheelbarrow. Tried a whole pint of beer - was OK, but I think it went off before I got to the bottom of it - then everyone was trying to shark and dance, and thankfully someone else was heading back, so back to the hostel to crash!

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