Do Not Pass Go. Do not collect $200. hah.. another Perth Update!
This time, it’s all about Fremantle.. one of the more touristy places in Perth to me. Or at least, here in Fremantle, I can act the dumb-tourist and feel quite good about it. hah.
One of the main highlights in Fremantle, even according to my friends (thanks Alwyn!), would be the Fremantle Prison. It’s quite cool really.. the whole history behind it abt how it first started, and the various milestones it met, and how it eventually closed and is now a lovely tourist attraction. =) Actually, rather than have me try to remember all abt its history, check out this wiki site and it’ll tell you pretty much all you need to know from the historian’s standpoint.
Fremantle Prison from the outside..
So anyway, there are apparently 3 different types of tours you can take at the Fremantle Prison.. there’s the Doing Time one (which we took), there’s a Great Escapes one (which features all the escapes attempted and stuff) and there’s a Torch Light tour (which I believe, is a tour of the tunnels in the prison).
Each of these tours seem really interesting, they each have their own themes and they bring you to different places and they guides talk abt different things on the different tours. Honestly, if time had permitted, I’d have gone for all 3, but the stupid parking gives u only a max of 3 hours at a go.. something like that. Bummer.
That's our tour guide 'Brendon' I think, on the left.. the greyish area in the background is actually limestone. Early prisoners were made to cut the limestone from here and use it to build the prison u see in the above picture.. amazing..
So anyway, the Doing Time tour was quite cool, they gave an introduction to the place and brought us around the prison and basically showed us how life was like while ‘doing time’.. =) they basically let you follow the route that a convict will take from the moment he steps into prison, and how his daily life was like..
that's the corridor of the cells.. rows and rows.. about 5 storeys i think..
and this is the Church-of-England church in the prison.. one of the nicer 'posh-er' looking places in it.. apparently some ppl actually have their weddings here.. HAH.
They brought us around and you get to see the individual cells and how tiny they are.. which they eventually expanded to combine a few cells together to give the convicts more ‘welfare’.. you also get to see the court yards where they’d hang out for a few hours each day.
that's the size of one cell when the prison first started.. can go crazy inside..
There were also some really good murals. Apparently, some aborigines were convicted too (for what, I honestly can’t remember), and these fellas could really draw. So some were allowed to teach others and toward the end of the prison’s lifespan, they allowed them to draw on the walls as a gesture of goodbye..
and of course, they showed us the gallows too.. abit gruesome, I mean, I’ve never really seen the gallows before. So it’s quite an experience, and with them telling you the whole process of how the inmate would be led from his cell to some holding cell.. and subsequently led to the gallows and how the whole thing unfolds. There was an awful silence as he was explaining.. hmm.
right in the middle, u can just abt make out the noose that's hanging from the ceiling..
Ok, this post is a little longer than I had expected.. initially thought of including the entire Fremantle trip here, but I think I’ll leave the other places in Fremantle for another time. =)
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