We were both a little house bound on Saturday so we decided that we would get out and do something different yesterday. There isn't a shortage of free and fun things to do here, and as long as we can get there by train or bus (which is almost anywhere) we are there!
Fremantle itself has a lot of nooks and crannies that you wouldn't know about unless you passed them on your way to somewhere. The city offers a lot of Heritage walks and you can either get a leaflet (with map and explanations) at the information centre or you can get them online. These are fantastic, but they do need to improve on the map directions a little.
Yesterday we decided to do the Convict Trail. Unfortunately a lot of the buildings or sites are no longer there but you do get a good idea of what it was like when you visit the Fremantle History Museum (more on that later) We started out in the harbour (to see a jetty that is no longer here) and had fish and chips for lunch (part of why we did the Convict trail was because it was the longest trail... burning off those chips!) the trail then went through the main strip in town to the Prison where we took some pics of the cottages just outside it.
You can apparently stay in these cottages, but I'm not sure that I would! We looked to see how much it was to look in the prison but you have to do a tour. I have been wanting to do a torchlight tour in the evening so we will probably do that sometime soon when The A isn't at the mines.
From the prison the trail took us to the Fremantle Arts Centre, a lovely limestone building that houses the Fremantle History musuem and is also where we went to see the Cat Empire last month. The museum is by donation and we both thought that it was really informative and the old photos in the corridors are fascinating to look at. The building itself has been a lunatic asylum (it has a 'Cell' that they had for patient isolation that you can go into) a women's shelter and has housed American soldiers during the second world war.
The last stop on the trail was at the top of the hill and was the quarry where the convicts got all the limestone for building (the prison and Arts centre) all that was left of it was two stone entrance gates that looked out over towards the maritine museum. The area also had the first cememtary which we discovered had been levelled for the (nasty 60's style) High school. I ended up taking lots of photos of the area hoping to capture 'something', but with no luck.
As a treat once we got back to town we had a beer!
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