I got a visitor last Friday! My friend Christine who I met in Melbourne and whom I have been in contact with eversince has taken a flight very early in the morning (poor girl!) to get to Perth, WA for the first time in her life. I picked her up at the airport at 9:30am and we headed straight for Fremantle. We had so much to talk about!!! And actually it was a little bit hard for me to speak completely in German again.
As she will be here for only four days we already planned the visits for each day and I can tell ya: they are jam-packed! I parked the Saab of my host family near the Fremantle Arts Centre and we had a brief look inside.
Then we took the FREE red CAT bus into the city center and walked around the Town Hall, ate some sandwiches and then went into the Fremantle market. I have only been to Fremantle once over two months ago. But luckily I still kind of found my way around.
After a stroll inside the market and a pie, we waited for the Wildlife Zoo to arrive, paid a donation and I convinced Christine to hold the snake. I am already kind of an expert in holding snakes and convincing others to hold one ;-)
After the snake (some sort of Python!) we patted the very cute koala. That's more like it Christine, right? Pure happiness as always when I get close to a koala. Christine also took a video of the cute little koala!!!
After this exciting start into the day we headed to the prison to have a short look around and through the bars.
We left the prison and arrived just in time to witness the 1pm firing of the cannon ball behind the roundhouse. This time the gun was way louder than the first time I heard it. Christine luckily took a video of that as well.
Christine went into the roundhouse while I waited outside. This friendly gentleman wouldn't let go of Christine and told her many things about Fremantle.
She must have said something really rude...
We stopped at Fishing Boat Harbour and took in the fantastic sunshine. It felt like summer all over again. GREAT!
Just across we also had a brief look around the Shipwreck Gallery. Filled up to the roof with interesting things recovered from the ocean.
At 2:30pm we were back a the prison to attend the Tunnel Tour! Together with our kind-of-funny tour guide Tristan and 8 other adventurer we made our way behind the prison.
Tristan doesn't like his picture taken :-D Anyway, this is the emergency exit in case something goes wrong while we are down in the tunnels. Like an earthquake, or a Perthquake... Haha Tristan...
This is the view into one of the four courtyards of the prison. I have done the Doing Time Tour two months ago where you actually go into two of the four courtyards. Terrible stories have been told.
Before we could get into our outfits we had to go through this model that shows how low the tunnels are. If you are afraid of height or confined spaces or are pregnant or had any recent surgery you can't take part in the tunnel tour.
We also had to blow into this Alcolizer to show we don't have any alcohol in our blood. Tristan started first to show that he really wasn't drunk, although he appeared like it...
This is the chamber where we had to climb 20 metres deep to get to the tunnels. We put on white overalls, Wellington Boots, a safety harness, a safety vest and a helmet with torchlight.
This is the chamber where we had to climb 20 metres deep to get to the tunnels. We put on white overalls, Wellington Boots, a safety harness, a safety vest and a helmet with torchlight.
This ladder system is German! HURRAY! Christine announced that we learn how to use this kind of stuff in kindergarden. Luckily we really had no problems in using it. Isn't it kind of self-explaining, Tristan?
A selfie please!!! This was after the tour. Down in the tunnels for safety reasons it is not allowed to take any personal belongings with you. We walked around a bit, listened to some bad German jokes from Tristan (Haha...), watched out for Red Bug spiders (AAHHHHHH!) and finally got into the little boats. It was really fun but also creepy with all the humidity, the mold, the cockroaches and the darkness. It was quite a funny group as well. I enjoyed the tour.
Don't we look like astronauts coming back from a mission?
At the end we even got a certificate about the successful completion of exploring the Fremantle prison tunnels! AWESOME!
Well, now it was past 5:30pm. The whole tour took us three hours and it was time for a beer! We went into the Sail&Anchor. A former brewery just opposite the Fremantle market.
At about 6:30pm we headed to South Perth Esplanade to have a look across the Swan River onto the skyline of Perth.
Well, then we drove to Manning. My host parents are so absolutely great, they agreed to let Christine stay at their house. As there is a second bed in my room she didn't even have to sleep on the floor :-)
We talked with Cecile during dinner and then set out our next plans for Saturday: Perth city center!
Yours with-friends-Fremantle-tunnel-exploring Stefanie
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Have your say now! Would you do the same thing or would you do it differently? Do you have any travel tipps for me for my onwards travels? let me know!