Thursday we decided to do a full
day in Fremantle and that is exactly what it turned out to be – but a fantastic
one. We started out by heading to the
Round House Precinct. This Round House
was built not long after settlement in Fremantle and was purpose built for
anyone convicted of crime; those as small as breaking curfew or stealing and
disobedience right up to mutiny, manslaughter and murder. Food was kept to bread and water unless they
worked the day when they got a small amount of salted meat. We had the chance to ring the bell on-site
and get locked into the gallows but we couldn’t keep the kids there as their
hands were so small that they were able to slip them out – nice try! Our next stop was at the WA Maritime Museum. We were told of, and saw, the “welcome walls”
out the front of the museum listing the names of migrants who came to Australia
by sea, landing in Fremantle and Albany.
The names of those people are not written in alphabetical order so Sami
and I started the long task of going through the walls of which there are over
400. Josh and Zoe headed inside the
museum to find out if there was an easier way and discovered that there was a
book listing the names in alphabetical order.
Upon looking up the Scheffer name, we were utterly disappointed to see
that our name was not listed. Apparently,
this one off project started in 2004 as a commemoration of the 175th
anniversary of the founding of the Swan River Colony and interest was so strong
that they went on to build and second and then a third and final round of walls
– and dam it, we never knew about this and therefore “missed the boat” (pun
intended). As my own little rebellion
against missing out, I have taken no photos of these walls. Inside the maritime museum we checked our
various exhibits that explore WA’s relationship with the sea, both past and
present, the best of these being an interactive gallery about how the Indian
Ocean has linked trade for thousands of years.
However, what we were most looking forward to inside the Maritime Museum
was witnessing the famous Australia II boat that won The America’s Cup in 1983 –
and it didn’t disappoint. The kids were
pretty sick of having their photo with it after about the first five minutes
but they did have fun trying their hand at tacking. The last thing to explore here at the
Maritime Museum was actually outside, this was the HMAS Ovens submarine. We did a tour of the outer and inner of the
submarine which 63 seamen served aboard at any one time. It was amazing that so many people could fit
on board living amongst the pumps, controls, sensors, tactical equipment and
torpedoes. I hope the money was good as
the cramped conditions would not have been great. When we finished the tour we took one last
look inside the museum so the kids could race upstairs to the periscope on the
top floor and look out into the Indian Ocean.
Upon leaving this museum we headed for another, this time the Shipwreck
Galleries Museum – the big one that we’d been waiting for. The reason being is that they have part of
the original Batavia ship inside. For
those that are unaware, the Batavia was a Dutch ship (part of the Dutch East
India Company (VOC)) that was on its maiden voyage to Indonesia in 1629 to
obtain spices; however it ran aground on the Abrolhos Islands which is off the
west coast of Australia near Geraldton. It
is primarily famous though due to the mutiny and massacre that took place
amongst the survivors. Remnants of this
ship were not discovered until 1972, nearly 350 years after the ship became
wrecked. The pieces of timber that were
recovered were dried out and treated for 10 - 12 months and then reconstructed in this temperature
controlled room of the Wreck Museum.
Although the lower stern section of the hull here appears to be quite
book, it is only a small part of the ship in comparison to its full size. There are a number of other things that have
also been recovered from the Batavia including canons, Dutch coins and even skeletal
remains which are assumed to be that of a mutineer’s victim. There is a lot of other information discovered
and materials found from other shipwrecks and you really could spend hours here
reading about them all. We though left
here and moved the car as our parking was up.
We ventured down to the Fremantle wharf area and took some happy snaps
near to the place where family would have first stepped onto Australian soil
and then caught a bus to the cappuccino strip of Fremantle for afternoon
tea. We were pretty full after our
drinks and large sweets like scones, cakes and slices. One other place that we’d been wanting to see
was the Fremantle Prison. It is located
atop a hill on The Terrace in Fremantle and was built between 1851 and 1859
using convict labour; it is primarily built from limestone and jarrah and actually
consists of some lovely buildings – that is from the outside at least. The inside is a different kettle of
fish. The cells are very small and
extremely eerie. Our tour group went
into a tiny cell and closed the door behind us, my mind went straight to the
thoughts of the prisoners that resided here in this small room over the years. We wandered through the different divisions,
and then up to the Church of England chapel that has the Our Father and Ten
Commandments on the front wall and a row of small cells at the rear for those
men too dangerous to sit amongst the others.
We walked through the manicured grounds outside and then into the
solitary confinement quarters which held large heavy double doors into the
small cells. This was also the place
where death row prisoners would come prior to their hanging. It would take less than a minute from the
time they left their cell here to the time they were actually hung – not long
to think about it I guess. The noose is
still hanging over the trap door where the prisoner would already have a hood covering
his head upon walking into the room and it would be only seconds before the executioner
would release the trap door. It was quite
late by the time we left Fremantle and nobody felt like cooking. Our extended family was going to Rockingham shops
so we met them there for a wander around the shops and to have some dinner.
To the dismay of the kids, Friday
we stayed home all day and pulled out the school work. We didn’t start early and nor did we finish
early. They were still at it when David
got home from work. We had a home-made
pizza night and they were delicious! The
kids enjoyed a movie tonight while the adults lazed about enjoying some Friday
night drinks. After our last couple of
busy days, it was just what we needed.
Saturday David had cricket so we
decided to get out of the house and head to Mandurah for the Boat Show. We parked at the local high school and caught
the shuttle to the show. There were
plenty of people around even though the weather was unpredictable. We had a good look around, in particular at
the pontoon boats (great to easily fit 3 families on board at any one time) that
have improved immensely, mainly in comfort.
We also boarded quite a few big boats so that we could dream about what
we are likely to never have – but dreams are good for the soul. The nicest of these was a $3.5 million
Squadron Fairline which was about 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms and the ultimate
in comfort and style. Saturday night we
planned to leave the girls at Uncle Rob’s with Daniel and Moshe as our personal
baby-sitters (although I’m not sure who was looking after who) while Josh and I
went out for dinner with Uncle Rob and Jiraporn and David met us while we were
out. We went to Fremantle to a sushi
train called Pink Rice followed by a stroll around town and a few drinks at a
local pub. We finished the night off
with coffee back at Uncle Rob’s in the comfort of his heater as it was freezing
outside tonight.
Sunday was to be our final full
day in Perth so we stayed home all day.
Josh washed our car and then did David’s car while I played with the kids
inside and did a bit of cleaning up too.
David went for a long bike ride with his mate and when they returned we
had a bit of lunch. It was a mostly lazy
day enjoying some home comforts ready to hit the road again tomorrow. I cooked up some yummy lamb cutlets and
vegetables for dinner and from here on in, David will need to go back to his
basic meals…. I’m going to miss cooking in his lovely kitchen!!
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