Australia 2025

Day Six - The extra Fremantle Day

Our extra day took us to nearby Fremantle or Freo as the locals call it.

We started with the Fremantle Convict prison which was built by convicts from Victorian Great Britain - the old two loaves of bread thing. You can read more here Fremantle Prison

The interesting thing on this visit was that the Swan River colony in Western Australia was essentially short of cheap labour so they asked for some convicts. Cheap labour to control costs - now there's a thing isn't it?

Anyway, it ceased being a convict prison in 1868 when transportation ended and became a high security gaol after and finally closed in the 1990's. Some interesting characters were interned there such as "Moondyne Joe" who was arrested and escaped more times than most pigs over our nearby farm.

Having squared away that bit of Australian history, we then had a look around the town centre and into a couple of bookshops when it rained hard for 30 seconds - it does rain in Australia, it not at all like Mars. Honest!

After a teabreak, we headed off to find Bon Scott's statue - he of AC/DC fame - where we met some of his adoring fans even though he's been dead 45 years. Not too far away is the Little Creatures brewery which Mike and Helen had told us about. A beer was in order although I didn't like it much as the one I chose was too hoppy (See my beer scale for why this is).

We returned to Perth via the excellent public transport system which was free today as this was part of the deal for the Test Match! No wonder Cricket Australia was moaning so much as it cost them an estimated $A5-10m in lost revenue and refunds. However, Perth's loss was Fremantle's gain as the town was packed.

Having washed up and Jon done his Spanish lessons, we were off to Ivy & Jack's again followed by the Belgian Bar for one. The Yorkies wanted to watch the Villa-Leeds game so we decamped to The Globe and watched it with the Barmy Army. The atmosphere was great especially as the place was packed with other Yorkies, a token Villa fan and a band! The beer though, is awful. For the record, Villa won 1-2 at Elland Road. I don't know what pleased me more - Leeds losing or Villa winning? Probably Leeds losing.