Going West Tour: Day 4 Fremantle heritage wandering

By the numbers

1 cemetery

1 prison tour

1 Fingerbun

21,614 steps

16.17kms

 

The morning started off really cool and I had a plan for the day that I wanted to get through before the day turned too hot and I ran out of time to get anything done. The place I was going to visit was the Fremantle prison for a guided tour and also Fremantle cemetery as it had a great heritage trail and also Bon Scott. I walked to the cemetery from the hostel with all intentions to visit the prison later in the day for the tour.

 

Instead of visiting a shop for breakfast, I had two bars that I bought from home that were free from everything. Two were my breakfast and I did enjoy them on my walk. The route I had planned would take me past a bakery, so I was all set to visit on the way. I got a little stuck around the golf course and Booyeembara park that had a partial walking trail that took me to where I wanted except this walking trail ended with it being blocked off due to a BMX type trail being built. Most of the park was all bush, and not the usual empty park ground. I thought I would have to double back, but walking past the fenced off area I made a path to get out of the park. I didn’t need to damage anything at all. I soon found the bakery, which I stopped for. There was a coffee and fingerbun involved as I needed to stop for a couple of minutes before walking off again towards the cemetery.

The cemetery itself looked pretty big as I walked towards the admin buildings. The cafe that was there was actually closed still. I don’t know if it opened later on. What I wanted was where to find the heritage trail. That was actually pretty easy as the signs told me where to go. The starting point was actually Bon Scott’s grave, which had a QR code for me to scan for the cemetery information. I wanted to do a little video after going to the garden of remembrance where he is located, and realised there is a Bon Scott memorial gate, with a star in the concrete too. Seems you can find him well enough. I had a cemetery map with the entire heritage trail that I could follow. There were plenty of notable people in the area including a headstone that came from the old cemetery, a motorcycle rally driver, several executed prisoners from Fremantle prison, Moondyne Joe an escapee artist who escaped Fremantle prison on several occasions, and a monument to two shipwrecks. The cemetery was pretty dry and sandy, much drier than the Bundaberg cemetery. There were other places where I wandered to look at headstones that caught my interest, but I knew I couldn’t spend all day there in the heat.

I was walking back to the prison from another direction that I had hoped would be downhill most of the way. At first I couldn’t see the footpath as on one side of the road it ended beside the busy highway, and the other side of the road looked like nothing was there. Once I crossed, I found there was something to walk along and most of it was behind a noise barrier. In one part it went under the highway near a roundabout, so I didn’t need to cross the road, which would have been impossible. The walk back was actually pretty fast and relaxing, although I was getting pretty hot and maybe sunburn too. I made it back to the prison with enough time for the next tour I wanted to do and for some food with a drink. I spoke to the survey lady who told me that after the tour we can have a coffee while she interviews me about the tour I went on. I wont pass of a free coffee, so I was happy to do it.

The tour I went on was about the convict side of the prison from when they turned up until transportation ended. Even though the prison had been used right up to 1991. Much of it had been the original furnishings that had been used including the cells. I did ask if prisoners who were there did tours and they actually did come back, and that includes the guards too. It had been interesting watching the interactions between guards and ex convicts. The prison did attract old prison guards to work at the historic prison for the tours. Their stories were pretty good as they could confirm the stories being told. The colony had started without convicts as it was a free settlement, until convicts turned up and basically the prison was built from their labour. The prison for a little while supplied the water to the town and there was numerous escape attempts. The governor at the time wasn’t worried as there wasn’t anywhere for them to escape too as they would either return or die out in the Australian landscape. One of them was Moondyne Joe who escaped multiple times until he was placed in an unescapable cell. He did escape again though, but wasn’t in the cell at the time. There was a protestant and a catholic chapel in the building for the two religions especially when the Irish were there too. There was an escape of the Irish who ended up in the United States as a ship had been hired to pick the escapees up. I had read about that story at uni, which was interesting. If I had done the other tours I would have found more information especially on the modern times of the prison. There was only really 5 of us, but the other tours had plenty more people than that on them.

 

Once the tour had ended, I found the lady that was giving a coffee for an interview about the tours. It was recorded, so that should be pretty interesting as I was pretty clear about why I was there and about the tunnels tour from several days before. I was asked which museum would I say impacted me the most. I mentioned the Vasa museum and the Mary Rose as they were awe inspiring by what was found and recovered including the techniques used in the perseveration. The lady told me about one in Norway that I should visit and I think I should put that on a plan to visit some time. I did have a look around the free exhibitions within the court yard of the prison after my coffee break. There were displays about the convict era, and then interviews with the prisoners before the prison officially closed. There were snippets on the walls with quotes from people during various time periods, with info panels looking into the archaeology and preservation of the grounds once the prison had closed.

 

By the time I walked out, I was getting hungry, so ended up with food from my favourite place and there was some jobs that required to be sorted out like my washing before going into Perth tomorrow, where I will stay until Sunday, where I will catch the train to Adelaide. There are small things that always need to be sorted before heading onto the next destination. I think I was just lucky that I had not stayed in Fremantle before getting the train or else I might have been late.