Visit to Fremantle
Hey all, so I just sen Nat off and now I have time to write about our brilliant excursion to Fremantle, which is a coastal town to the North West (barely) of Perth. Its pretty accessible by train though, so we took a train there and back, and was surprised by the abundance of seats (which do not exist anymore in Singapore beyond Pasir Ris Station and other end line stations). But yeah it was very efficient and got us to Fremantle pretty quickly. More about the train system when I have the time I guess, to fully write about it because its quite interesting how they do things here, when it comes to public transport.
This is Nat at a sign in Fremantle, which stated where the different places were, it wasn't really hard to find many places there, cos there were many signs like these around.
But as we were heading to the prison, we stumbled upon a timezone. Instinctively headed in, and saw a DDR machine, for those who don't know Nat is an expert when it comes to DDR, cos she practiced a lot in secondary school days, so to our surprise the DDR machine was open, cos someone had put in credits and was no longer there. So like a duck to water, she took to it.
This is her in action. As you can see her feet are too fast for the shutter speed on my lousy cam. Haha!
On the way to the prison, I saw the Fremantle Oval, where they play Aussie Rules Football in Fremantle. So headed there to take a pic of the field, which isn't astroturf btw.
The entrance of Fremantle Prison.
A common view in Fremantle prison, the long corridors, with thick doors to the right and left.
And of course there was more than one floor, the netting between the floors was to prevent any suicide cases of ppl jumpin off from the top floor down.
The inside of one of the cells, with a simple study table and chair, and a bed. Prisoners spend about half the day here, the other half working outside.
The toilets are in the exercise yard where the prisoners eat. This pic is about less than 10m where the rest eat. If you want to shit in your cell, there is a bucket which you use, and then empty in a drain near to this toilet.
According to a guide, in the past there used to be a superstition that when an owl flies in, it will indicate if an inmate will be hung or spared (by getting an appeal or reprieve) according to which exercise yard it flew into. And lo and behold she said she had not seen an owl for 3 years, until a few weeks ago, when this owl appeared. As she was telling us about this, the wind picked up tremendously and I was quite scared.
One of the favourite pasttimes of the prisoners while they were outside was basketball, here you see a make shift hoop. There were lines drawn on the floor and all.
This was the anglican church inside the prison. Even here, the prisoners who were violent or at risk (child killers/ex policeman) were seperated cos there were cages behind for them to attend the service in.
No. 6 was ironic, because the very person who painted this, was released from prison and later arrested for murder.
One of the oldest things in the prison is this classic piano, which was brought from England.
The inside of one of the inmate's cell. This particular inmate was rather talented so he was allowed to paint on his walls.
Another painting by an inmate.
A msg written by an inmate here. I have no idea though whether he died in prison, or eventually met his family though, but it goes to show that everybody is human and love is what makes us human.
I love this line, cos its so apt for someone in prison, this was found in another cell. Its like he is trying to remind himself that since he is now in prison (which is obvs not something he planned) he has to try and live life as it was now, and not keep thinking about what was to come. Because if he did, he wouldnt see whats in front of him. Something for all of us.
The triangle, a placed where unruly inmates were tied to and then later whipped.
The inside of a cell of solitary confinement, you stayed 23 hours inside and 1 hour outside, an inmate was rumoured to be in there for 2 years.
The guide told us that this cell was special because if you were in this cell, you only needed to stay for two hours. When asked why, she said its cos you were going to be hung if you were in this cell.
The gallows, 44 people were hung altogether in this room, I did not stay long. None of us did really.
Another look at the gallow, basically that hole is a floor that can be collapsed upon turning the lever which is near the fence.
This is the inside of the catholic church, which was near the women's prison.
Aboriginal art, inside one of the inmate's cells.
This is the inside of the escape proof cell which the famed escape-prone prisoner Moondyne Joe was put in. The walls a redouble thick and so are the doors. The bumps in the wall are old marks of where nails were once stuck to, so the walls were actually covered with deadly sharp nails so that he could not escape. Btw, he did escape, but during worktime in the yard, when he quarried stones, and was secretly digging a hole through the outside wall.
You would be a fool to climb up these stairs, cos if you did, you were about 10m from freedom, seperated by a wall, so they were really careful whom they allowed up here.
Prison, is a place of despair, but also a place where people find many things in themselves, which give them hope. Rainbow over the fremantle prison, two vastly different symbols which somehow appeared together before we left the prison that day.
Thereafter we popped by to the Fremantle chocolate factory and this is a picture on the inside of it, with the chocolate flowing freely. I felt so tempted to just stick my finger in and taste it. But if I did I would prob be made to pay for contaminating litres of chocolate man.
This is the outside of the factory with rows and rows of chocolate to buy. It was also at quite a good price as well.
We managed to pop by the maritime museum as well, and here is Nat taking a picture beside a submarine propellor, she is happy that she is taller than it!
This is the submarine that the propellor belongs to.
Just a view of the coast of Fremantle, sorry its quite blur cos the wind was absolutely gusting over there.Overall it was a superb trip plus the seafood there was to die for, definitely way better than East Coast and Fish and Co, and it was really worth it. I was so full from eating i literally fell asleep while waiting for the food to be digested. But yeah, I hope to go there soon. There are actually night ghost tours at Fremantle, so I hope to go there.
Thats all for now guys, hope you enjoyed the pics.
Missing all,
Az
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