Touring Perth and Fremantle

Had a great day today touring Perth and Fremantle.  These are two connected cities. Fremantle is the actual ocean port and then the Swan river goes inland and you have Perth.  We walked down to the river to take the ferry to Fremantle. You can see the skyline of  Perth which is a very new city and many very new buildings.  As you go down river towards the Indian ocean on the 1 hour ferry ride you go by many new homes as Perth decided about 20 years ago to move all industry away from the river and instead to put expensive housing.  The river bank house I have included is worth $70 million. 

As you get to the Fremantle harbour you find the big ocean liners.  I have included pictures of three. The red one hauls cars from Europe and Japan and can hold over 4000 vehicles.  The container ship is being loaded and it hard to believe they can pile the containers that high and the ship does not tip going across the rough ocean.  The third ship will be of interest because it hauls wheat.  You will note the side has much red above the water line because the boat is empty. In order to haul wheat it must be totally cleaned and inspected.  This ship just passed the inspection and is now heading to the grain terminal to be loaded with wheat which will likely be shipped to China. . 

Fremantle is a much smaller and older city than Perth but in many ways more interesting than Perth - you can walk around the docks and have great Fish and Chips -- we had our picture taken -- it was about 2pm and it was about 38C so we were very hot -- so we needed to havbe a Crownie -- popular Australia beer is Crown. 

We finished off the day in Fremantle with a one hour tour of the old Prison which is now an international hertiage site. The prison was build by the convicts and and this is where they were held.  Convicts were sent to Fremantle to supply workers to build many of the buildings in that city.  The prison opened in 1850 and continued to operate until 1991 and in the years after 1885 it was used for all types of prisoners. Was  given much publicity in the late 1980s because of the very poor conditions for prisoners and this led to its closure.

We decided to have supper in a sidewalk cafe in Fremantle which has very inteeresting streets with many little shops.  We then returned home on the train getting concession rates -- at $1.50 per person.  The concession rate if people over 60 but there is an official concession card people in Australia get However, when we tell them we are from Canada and are all over 60 they usually give us the rate.  So who says aging doesn't pay!!!