I headed out to Fremantle today despite the impending weather front. The forecast was not promising and quite frankly the forecast turned out to be much better than the reality. Mother nature got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, plus she'd run out of coffee and had some late developing PMT. She dealt with it quite well all things considered and is feeling much better now thank you very much. She took it all out on Fremantle.
I'd been to Fremantle in 1992 in those days the America's Cup Yacht race was still pretty big news even though we'd won it in 1983 and lost it again in 1987. The other big thing at the time was the reconstruction of the "HMB Endeavour" the ship made famous by James Cook. The Endeavour replica was completed long ago and is now a part of the National Maritime Museum in Sydney and is available to visit there when she is not sailing up and down the east coast.
On my last trip Fremantle was where all the good restaurants were and was the place to be seen if you were young and hip. It has gentrified a lot in the last 20 years. It seems to have a plethora of over priced real estate and was way too expensive to consider as a tourist destination (entry level room price is around the $250.00 per night mark). It does however have the Fremantle Gaol and the excellent Western Australian Maritime Museum. So I headed off to check both of them out.
I jumped on the train from Perth for the 30 minute ride down the coast. It was seriously disconcerting for this easterner to be travelling south while having the coast on my right. It turned my world upside down. The Indian Ocean was putting on a pretty impressive show. There was a vessel anchored out in the middle of the storm and it was absolutely copping it. Some parts of the coast recorded wind gusts of up to 139kph. I was standing on the third floor of the maritime museum and the sea spray was well above my head and was pushing inland for a fair distance.
The museum itself was great. It had a lot of naval history stuff and in more clement weather had an Oberon Class submarine to tour.
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Fremantle was used by both the UK and the US as a submarine base in World War II and they have the old Oberon Class Sub installed on an old WW II slip. I was fortunate enough to go on one of the Oberons when they were active. I remember the enlisted guy who gave us the tour had a new arsehole chewed for him by the captain when he put up the periscope and let us have a look. It was way cooler than in the movies. You actually sat down to use it and there were left and right pedals for your feet that engaged an electric motor to orientate the periscope. Sadly this one was shut as the weather made getting on board too dangerous.
The other cool thing the museum had was the "Australia II", the yacht that won Alan Bond the America's Cup. This was the 12 metre secret weapon that had the infamous winged keel designed by Ben Lexcen. I had been fortunate enough to go on board in January 1984 when it toured the country on a victory lap. I remember us winning it so well. It was a best of 7 race series and we were tied at 3 wins a piece. The winner of the 7th race would win the cup. I was at boarding school at the time and we hatched a plan to watch the race. It was so incredibly against school rules to be watching TV overnight, therefore we couldn't use one of the TV rooms. A friend and I broke into the science labs, "borrowed" a set used to show videos to students and put it in our dormitory. We then set our alarms and woke up 1.00am to watch history being made. We even got the TV set back without getting caught. Seeing the old tub again brought back all of those memories.
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From there I headed off to the old Fremantle Prison. On my last visit it had only stopped being a prison a year before. They have opened up far more of the facility and lightened up on the rules quite a bit since then.
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On the occasion of my last visit I experienced a positively evil sensation at the location of the gallows. The last stop on the tour is the execution chamber and it was still in use up until 1964. Its deadly purpose saw it despatch 43 men and one woman. Fortunately those feelings didn't return, the size of the group probably helped along with the fact that the real impact of what we were looking at was lost on some of the more youthful and exuberant members of our party.
By the time I left the heavens were well and truly open and the wind was nearly knocking me off my feet. I took shelter in the markets where a lot of therapy was being delivered and received (of the retail type). I finally braved the train station for the trip back to Perth. The trains were all delayed because of some weather induced blackouts and I crawled back to town for my last night in the big smoke.
Its off to Kalbarri tomorrow via The Pinnacles and Geraldton, hopefully the weather will come good.
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Fremantle was used by both the UK and the US as a submarine base in World War II and they have the old Oberon Class Sub installed on an old WW II slip. I was fortunate enough to go on one of the Oberons when they were active. I remember the enlisted guy who gave us the tour had a new arsehole chewed for him by the captain when he put up the periscope and let us have a look. It was way cooler than in the movies. You actually sat down to use it and there were left and right pedals for your feet that engaged an electric motor to orientate the periscope. Sadly this one was shut as the weather made getting on board too dangerous.
The other cool thing the museum had was the "Australia II", the yacht that won Alan Bond the America's Cup. This was the 12 metre secret weapon that had the infamous winged keel designed by Ben Lexcen. I had been fortunate enough to go on board in January 1984 when it toured the country on a victory lap. I remember us winning it so well. It was a best of 7 race series and we were tied at 3 wins a piece. The winner of the 7th race would win the cup. I was at boarding school at the time and we hatched a plan to watch the race. It was so incredibly against school rules to be watching TV overnight, therefore we couldn't use one of the TV rooms. A friend and I broke into the science labs, "borrowed" a set used to show videos to students and put it in our dormitory. We then set our alarms and woke up 1.00am to watch history being made. We even got the TV set back without getting caught. Seeing the old tub again brought back all of those memories.
.jpg)
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From there I headed off to the old Fremantle Prison. On my last visit it had only stopped being a prison a year before. They have opened up far more of the facility and lightened up on the rules quite a bit since then.
.jpg)
On the occasion of my last visit I experienced a positively evil sensation at the location of the gallows. The last stop on the tour is the execution chamber and it was still in use up until 1964. Its deadly purpose saw it despatch 43 men and one woman. Fortunately those feelings didn't return, the size of the group probably helped along with the fact that the real impact of what we were looking at was lost on some of the more youthful and exuberant members of our party.
By the time I left the heavens were well and truly open and the wind was nearly knocking me off my feet. I took shelter in the markets where a lot of therapy was being delivered and received (of the retail type). I finally braved the train station for the trip back to Perth. The trains were all delayed because of some weather induced blackouts and I crawled back to town for my last night in the big smoke.
Its off to Kalbarri tomorrow via The Pinnacles and Geraldton, hopefully the weather will come good.
Hey Scott, heard about the terrible weather in WA. You will be pleased to be there, when you know that on Saturday it was -6 on our verandah!.. Freezy!
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