Perth and Fremantle, Australia

Perth is a very pretty city, clean and metropolitan and approximately 2.9 million people call Perth home. Perth is centered around the Swan River which drains into the Indian Ocean and it goes quite far inland. From our 26th floor of The Westin Hotel room we had killer views day and night.

We also had a good view of the Swan River from our Executive Suite corner room.

We walked around the next day and familiarized ourselves with the city. It has a very pretty downtown core and we were based in the center of Perth.

Little Corella Birds, cute but very loud.

The old clock tower has been encapsulated in this modern form now

The second day we did Rottnest Island and the third day we made our way to The Perth Mint for an incredible tour, exhibition and demonstration of melting gold down and pouring it into a gold bar.

Not going to lie, I was kind of in heaven in this building. I can't believe that this building has not been burgled or broken into or had a grand theft because the millions of dollars worth of gold in this place is mind-boggling. We had a young man talk to us about 15 minutes on the history of the Perth Mint and it was fascinating. The Perth municipal government petitioned the federal government for a new mint. There were two on the Eastern side of Australia but the gold was being discovered, mined and panned on the west side. All of these Gold Rushes were happening on the west side and there was no place to pay the prospectors for their gold nuggets. The prospectors could not make the 3 or 4 months trip across the dangerous Outback of Australia to the Sydney area where the Mint was.

After the young man spoke to us we toured the inside of the building and looked at some of the display gold coins that were made in the mint. We also got to see some of the original gold nuggets that were found in their original form.

Huge nugget in its original form which is the size of your head.

We then moved to a gold bullion show by Chloe who explained how to melt down the gold and to pour it and then she actually went through the demonstration and it it was really cool.

The last thing was that everybody wanted to take their picture with the humongous gold coin that is solid gold and it would take a truck to lift it out or to steal it. This is currently worth $297 million according to the gold market now.

Unbelievable solid gold coin that was about 6 inches thick.

We all played in the exhibits area where you can weigh yourself in Gold and I am over 12 Billion dollars worth of course.

This Gold layered art work was made in the mint.

On our fourth day We decided to take in Fremantle and everything that Fremantle has to offer. It is a very popular place for locals and tourists. Fremantle is at the mouth where the Swan River meets the Indian Ocean . We walked to the Perth train station and bought tickets for 5.20 Aussie dollars each and waited for the train to take us to Fremantle which is approximately a 30-minute trip.

Prisons and convict life are a big part of the history of Australia . Penal colonies are what started the population growth in Australia and Tasmania. England and Ireland sent thousands of their prisoners to Australia for a very hard convict life but a new life . Many Aussies can trace their ancestors and history back to convict times in the penal colonies. I had booked the Fremantle Prison double tour of Convict Prison Life and True Crime for 2:00 p.m. which would give us enough time to check out the pretty streets of Fremantle.

Lots of pretty old buildings and neat little stores to visit in Fremantle.

Unfortunately, the markets are only open on the weekends and it was Thursday. We walked around for a few hours and took some pictures and checked out Fremantle and all the history that Fremantle has to offer and then walked our way to the old round prison and to the ocean. The Fremantle Prison was closed in 1996, that is the year it had its last convicts. We asked to get into the 1:00 p.m. Tour which we did and that meant that we would have less waiting around. Unfortunately, Fremantle is much livelier on the weekends with the bars hopping and the all the restaurants and the markets open and music playing.

We started the Fremantle Prison tour of this UNESCO World Heritage Site and it was very interesting. Apparently Fremantle was a dying community and the government petitioned the federal government to give them a prison and to start sending convicts from England and Ireland in the 1800s. The first ship arrived and only men were at this prison originally and they actually had to chisel and chip the blocks from the Fremantle hillside to make the prison that they were going to be imprisoned in.

Metal Art to greet you into the Prison.

The main front gates of Fremantle Prison.

This was a No Joke prison unlike the prisons of today. This was a real prison where you worked sun up to sundown, received bread and water and rations and were lashed if you didn't conform. Many of the prisoners sent from England and Ireland did not deserve this type of prison life and many young boys were sent. The youngest was 9 years old. Can you imagine being 9 years old shipped away from your family across the ocean into a strange land and imprisoned for 10 years of hard labor?

Inside the cell blocks.

Each room consisted of a solid metal door cast in Scotland and shipped to Fremantle, a hammock, small blanket, a side table, a window and a water pot and a pee pot.

Very short doors.

We finished touring most of the prison buildings except for the female block which opened up in the early 1900s and is now a hostel where you can pay to stay overnight. You can even rent the chapel for your wedding ceremony now if you like.

Inside the chapel which was part of every Sunday for every prisoner. They believed that religion would confirm the sinners.

Some beautiful art work still exists today in many of the prison cells.

Once you proved yourself trustworthy then you could get a room with more men and then not be so lonely.

The inside of these small cell doors were really quite beautiful.

Inside a stripped cell room. You could not spread out your arms, they were approximately just more than one of my arm lengths in width.

This was a flogging station that was actually used and has survived the length of the prison. There was a boy as young as 9 flogged here with the cat o nine tails which you can see in the Prison Museum.

Our tour ended and we sat down and had a drink of ginger beer which is very popular in Australia and waited 15 more minutes for our second tour to start. It was a very hot day at 30 plus degrees so it was nice to just get out of the sun because the prison blocks are not air-conditioned of course and they are hot and stuffy.

The True Crime Tour started and Darren and I were the only ones so Debbie her name was who did our first tour and our second tour let us ask a multitude of questions and it was all very interesting. True Crime was about actual convicts and some of their amazingly horrible stories. Either good or bad and I think Debbie enjoyed the tour as much as we did because she liked answering questions.

Martha was hung after being in prison for two weeks. She was most likely 100% innocent.

This was a serial rapist who escaped twice from prison to rape over and over again.

Outside of the back of the Prison from one of the Guard Towers.

The limestone wall that no one successfully climbed over.

In the Cistern. The hill that the Prison was on had a multitude of water from the wells underneath and they eventually began giving clean filtered by limestone water to the town of Fremantle which was dieing of Dysentry.

After the tour we made it back to the train station and bought our tickets and literally sat down for 2 minutes and the train left which was perfect timing. The train goes every 20 minutes back to Perth. We walked the 15 minutes or so back to the hotel and took part in the 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. complimentary wine and appees and pretty much full supper at The Westin Hotel due to my Titanium Elite level.

It was another good day in Fremantle Australia.