Sunday 4 August 2024 – Stephen, the driver who ferried us from airport to hotel, had waxed lyrical about many things, among which was Fremantle when the market is on, meaning Friday, Saturday or Sunday. He had suggested taking a ferry down the river for the views over the various suburbs, and then catching the train back, which thus became our plan A.
Plan B, involving travelling both ways by train, was drafted and adopted very soon after discovering that the ferry was fully booked. The train station, a handsome building,
is very close to the hotel, and so we could very quickly be discovered staring at the screen of a ticket machine, trying to work out which of the various fare options we should take, given that “return ticket to Fremantle” didn’t seem to figure among the candidates. We each opted for a Day Rider ticket, costing about Aus$10. The machine disgorged a small slip of paper, which seemed to be very different from what everyone else was using – they were beeping in and out through barriers, using cards or phones. However, it was quite possible to simply wander past the barriers, so we just walked through and fervently hoped that was a legit tactic. It didn’t seem to be policed in any obvious way at all. The Fremantle train came, bang on time, and left, bang on time, to start the 17-stop journey through the suburbs to Fremantle – “Freo”, as the natives call it. We noticed, as we went along, that they don’t give you much time at any stop to get through the doors before they are closed; at least one couple very nearly got separated by the alacrity of the process.
We also noticed that Transperth have their own version of the UK’s much beloved “See it, Say it, Sorted” campaign.
Mercifully, it’s just posters in the train rather than the inane broadcast slogan we have to endure in the UK.
After 45 minutes we arrived at Fremantle and started following the crowds from the train towards the centre of town. Driver Stephen had mentioned that Fremantle was much less high rise than Perth, with many of the older buildings still extant. And this makes it a very attractive centre to walk around.
We decided to reward our fortitude for taking on the public transport system in a far-distant land by having a coffee. There was a bewildering choice of establishments, so we chose one at random and were able to sit out on the pavement and watch the world go by, the while admiring the planters that demarcated the road’s central reservation.
It seemed that going by in some kind of ostentatious, classic and typically American car was A Thing;
the red one came by at least twice whilst we were taking coffee. Maybe he was showing off, or maybe he couldn’t find a parking spot large enough for his Chevvy; but his licence plate, CRUZN 57, tips the odds in favour of the former, I think.
We were in Market Street, which we guessed might lead us to the fabled Fremantle market; and so it proved as we walked a few more steps along the road.
(The extra crowds outside the market hall had been attracted by a street performer, who was in the middle of a very polished and amusing act involving bullwhips and other tricks.)
It might have been crowded outside but that had nothing on the press inside.
All sorts of enterprises were in action, offering all kinds of things. There were, of course, many stalls selling foodstuffs
but there were all sorts of other emporia as well.
I was quite taken with this chap, who was examining with great intensity the selection of pins at a stall specialising in pins and fridge magnets.
He looked very much like a connoisseur of such things, seeking Just The Right Thing to add to his clearly very well-established collection. Either that or someone that the stallholder needed to keep a sharp eye on.
The other Fremantle attraction that driver Stephen had waxed lyrical about was
The Prison, which is Western Australia’s only World Heritage Listed building. So we headed that way, past a striking installation on the wall leading to it.
Entry is free, and takes one into a courtyard off which there are entrances to a variety of exhibition rooms,
but the best value of a visit comes from a (paid) guided tour. There are various different tours on offer; the one that interested us was the chance to see inside the place, the “Behind Bars” tour. We had about 45 minutes to wait, so looked around the various free exhibits, which had a lot of information about the history and significance of the place, as well as displays of various aspects, such as prison clothing.
We had a coffee at the “No Escape Café” whilst we waited, and took the chance to experience a slice of typical Australian gastronomic culture.
Our tour was led by a very knowledgeable and friendly lady called Debbie, who gave us a brief overview of the history of the place, before taking us into the inner part of the prison.
The prison was built by convicts, who had been transported from the UK, between 1852 and 1859, using limestone quarried from the site. Western Australia at the time was in a bad way – a small colony which had few resources, skilled or unskilled, to expand the economy. Between 1845 and 1847, York Agricultural Society, supported by several merchants, lobbied the colony’s Legislative Council to petition the British Government to send convicts. They saw this as the best option to help supplement the lack of skilled and unskilled labour. The petition was successful and the first convicts arrived in 1850, with building the prison itself being their first task. At first called The Establishment, it was renamed Fremantle Prison in 1867. Transportation ceased the following year when the Hougoumont carried the last convicts to Fremantle. Nearly 10,000 convicts passed through the ‘establishment’ between 1850 and 1868, and the prison remained in use until 1991.
Debbie, of course, gave our group vast amounts of information about the prison as she led us around, and I, of course, have forgotten most of it. She described the induction process, which was a pretty undignified matter for incomers, then led us through the kitchens (much expanded from their original size)
to the exercise yard
which must have been a hellish place – as many as 700 male convicts left to their own devices from 8.30am to 4.15pm, overseen only by a guard (in a separated cage for his own protection), and with nothing to do to occupy their time. What could possibly go wrong?
Amazingly, in the mid-20th century, some turned to art, and there are the remnants of so-called Carrolup Art on the walls.
Time, and the nature of the limestone wall beneath, has faded the paintings, but there is an illustration of what it would have looked like in its time.
There were further examples in some of the cells.
Ah yes, the cells. Debbie then led us to the actual cell blocks for the men’s part of the prison.
We got a chance to see what the original cells looked like, and how they developed over the years that the prison was in operation. The original cells were torturously tiny, and were gradually expanded over time.
Some of the cells were extravagantly and exquisitely decorated with art.
Some were more simply decorated
There were two other areas that Debbie showed us as part of this hugely interesting tour: the gibbet room, which was in use until as late as 1964,
and the women’s prison (now a youth hostel!)
Although women were incarcerated for anything from the slightest to the most serious of offences – drinking, through stealing to prostitution – it could be supposed that their prison life was less arduous than the men’s. There were some 70 women prisoners, as opposed to the 700 men, and their time was at least occupied, with washing and mending (and even eventually cooking), which must have been preferable to day after day of boredom and lack of privacy for those men not on labour gangs or working in the kitchens.
After this engaging couple of hours, we wandered on a little way from the prison, past the Fremantle Oval
where, of course, the game is Australian Rules Football, not cricket. Outside the Oval is a statue
dedicated to
(Look it up; I can’t be doing with explaining it here.)
We pottered on for a bit, past some artworks of different vintages
and I got my first wildlife photo of this trip, a Western Corella (a sort of cockatoo),
which was among a whole bunch of them cackling and squawking in the trees.
Our wandering had taken us back to Fremantle train station, and so we used the train to get to North Fremantle for a cocktail followed by an early dinner at Bib & Tucker, which was very pleasant and an opportunity to watch the sun go down. Then we caught the train back to Perth, so the Day Rider tickets came in very handy, thank you very much; a good decision, accidentally made.
The morrow has us participating in the only actually scheduled activity during our time in the Perth area, a visit to Rottnest Island, where the main objective must be to get a photo of its characteristic wildlife. How that went, and whether I was successful in catching a good photo of it, will have to wait for the next, thrilling, installment.
