Freemantle

A relaxing day in sunny, warm – almost too warm – Freemantle , or Freo as some call it.

With Clare, Dave and Andrew we visited Freemantle Prison, Western Australia’s only World Heritage listed building. In 1850, the first of almost 10,000 male convicts arrived as a labour force to help build the Swan River Colony. Their first project was to build their own home – the Convict Establishment – later renamed Freemantle Prison. The convict era ended in 1886 and the prison became Western Australia’s maximum security gaol for men, women and children until it was decommissioned in 1991. We took a guided tour: “Convict Prison” which took an hour and a quarter and was about the time from the 1850s until 1886.

From the Prison we went to Little Creatures Brewery where we met up with Simon and Dez, Susan and Mike and Dez’s family Ruth and Craig and their seven children for a very nice lunch. Later in the day Dave and I went for a walk around Freemantle looking at the lovely old buildings and checked out the Roundhouse Precinct on the shore near Bathers Beach where a canon is fired at 1300hrs every day.

Tomorrow we all head down to the Rottnest Express Ferry to go over to Rottnest Island for the next three days.