Today was the first day that Eddie had to work and I went off exploring on my own. On the recommendation of both our travel agent and some ladies in the hotel, I took the ferry to Fremantle. $39.95 AU, and it includes a “wine tasting” on the return trip – which I’m on as I write this, eagerly awaiting the staff to get the hooch out.
Have I mentioned how much I really, really, really like my new 10 inch laptop? It’s been in my bag all day, and at 3.22 pounds I didn’t mind it at all. Well, no more than I minded the rest of the backpack. It's very hot here, and I've realized that the sunscreen I put on didn't extend to the top of my head -- an error in judgment I'm undoubtedly going to regret in the coming days.
Anyhow, the cruise took off from the “belltower” near our hotel at 9:45 this morning. An hour and 15 minutes each way, with the captain commenting on points of interest along the way. Don’t worry, I didn’t take notes and won’t recount the journey, other than to point out that some things are universal – the closer the house is to the water, the more expensive it is. Someone here has a house on the market for a mere $85 million. Even converting that from Aussie Dollars to US, that’s still a whopping $56.1 million, more or less. This leads to yet another universal conclusion -- that some people have more money than common sense.
Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world. It was claimed by the British just a couple of weeks prior to a French expedition’s attempt to land and lay claim to it. One tour guide today pointed out that’d be about like Canada’s got with Quebec.
The offered a little tour guide for purchase on the ferry. I opted out, but glancing through it shows that the Australians treated their indigenous folks about the same way we did in North America.
Some other things are universal, as I learned by reading the local paper. Childhood obesity (as well as adult obesity) and unhealthy vending machines and school lunches are a significant problem in Australia right now.
Australians are sports fanatics. It’s amazing how many of them are planning to play hookie from work today to watch the Superbowl (which came on about 6:00 a.m. local time if I’ve calculated correctly.)
Paper cups here are truly paper cups. What’s neat about them is that those destined for hot liquids have a textured outer layer around them so you don’t get burned holding them. It’s a lot better than the paper coffee cozies you get at Starbucks.
Enough of the triva, though. I opted out of the informative off / on trolly, which was probably a mistake. On the map, it looked very small. In reality, it is very small, had I not been reading the map upside down much of the time. Something about being in the southern hemisphere, I suspect – we know it couldn’t possibly be that I’m an idiot when it comes to reading a map.
Fremantle is about like Key West. As I wandered around, I noticed that a lot of the houses even have the same feel – small and set very closely together. I suspect that’s got something to do with the fact that they’re on an island. The difference is that here most construction is done out of concrete blocks or brick rather than wooden construction. In the CBD (Central Business District), there’s lots of little ootzy shops, a mix of T-shirts, junk, high end galleries and (primarily) women’s clothing. Red Dot stores are the equivalent of Freds or Dollar General. I didn’t go into many of the others – didn’t need any of that stuff, so didn’t buy any of it.
So I walked. A lot. 7.6 miles according to my little digital pedometer. Did I mention that according to the website it was 100 degrees F out there? Just because they express it in degrees centigrade doesn’t make it feel any better. It’s still hot, and the only real place they made any money off of me was on bottled water.
One thing that amazes me is the number of people that walk around barefoot. They (teenagers and 20-somethings primarily) walk along on the asphalt like there’s nothing to it. For those of you from Oklahoma – can you imagine heading across a mall parking lot barefoot in July?? Didn’t seem to be a big thing to them, though.
I had lunch at a place picked because (a) I was hot and tired, (b) they had shade over their outdoor dining and (c) there didn’t appear to be much of a wait. Nothing spectacular – noting the comparison to Key West or Myrtle Beach, if you’re in the tourist district your food, for the most part, is going to be nothing spectacular.
While sitting at lunch with a glass of wine (which I think cleared my head from the heat), I recognized how the map worked, happened to find a street sigh so I could get oriented, and decided to try once again to go to the prison tour. This time I was successful and after paying my $17.50 I go to see the jail.
Traveling during the off season is that there’s no crowds for the most part. Our tour had 4, including me – a couple from Holland and a British kid from London who is backpacking for an extended period of time.
Prisons, especially old ones, tend to look very similar. This was so similar to Alcatraz in San Francisco that had I been dropped into either one of them and not known where I was, I probably couldn’t have told the difference. Tiny cells (4 ft. by 7 ft), cots, etc. The main difference is that this prison, having been built in 1850, didn’t have running water or toilets. Until it closed in 1991, they slopped out buckets every morning. Ugh.
The one unique thing we did get to see that was different was the gallows, where those sentenced to death were hanged, pictured above. We were allowed in the actual location, could touch and pull the lever if we wanted. No traditional noose like we see in Westerns – just a metal grommet with the end of the rope slipped through it. The condemned (43 men and 1 woman) were set above a trap door and the executioner pulled the lever. In order to insure that the rope didn’t stretch, which could result either in strangulation or decapitation, the executioner came in a day early and did practice runs with bags of sand the same weight as the condemned. As with most everything else, I assume that practice makes perfect.
The tour went a bit faster than it would have with 40 people in it, and our guide knew that I was on a tight time schedule – usually it takes an hour and 15 minutes, he got us done in an hour with all the exhibits in there – it was time to head back to the ferry dock. As I was leaving I asked directions (since I only had 30 minutes to make the ferry) and he handed me a map and said, “This is much better than the old ones like you’ve got – some of them are printed backwards”. Suddenly I felt much better about being directionally challenged.
Straight down the hill, through town and across the railroad tracks, where the ferry was just pulling up to the dock. On that happy note, the wine tasting is now underway and I certainly don’t want to miss out.
Cheers.
