Diary date: Tuesday 12th October
A very tired Lolli is writing this. The whale watching today was absolutely FAB! We caught train to our pick up point and found it easily enough. Even had time for a coffee before the transport arrived, then it was north along the coast to Hillary's for the boat. We had glorious views over the Indian ocean most of the way and finally arrived at Hillary's, where there was just a few million quid's worth of rather nice boats moored up in the marina. We had about half an hour to spare before our boat arrived, so we went for a drink in one of the cafés around the jetties. It was a Chocolateria and there were simply LOADS of different chocolate drinks available. I just went for an iced chocolate and Peter had a latte, as we are not very adventurous. There were also lots of delicious looking chocolates (think Thornton's Plus!) and chocolate desserts to eat, but with stoical restraint, as we are both watching our waistlines, (GROWING!!!) we managed not to succumb to temptation!
When the boat arrived there were very few passengers, which meant we could all get out onto the whale watching deck. We had been going about 20 minutes before the first one was sighted. It was not, however a very active whale and we mainly just saw its back a few times. Meanwhile, in the distance on the starboard side one of the other passengers had spotted a couple of much more active whales breaching and doing all sorts of acrobatics, so the crew took the boat over in that direction. It was much better and we saw several whales 'breach' (leap up out of the water and land on their backs). We stayed for ages trying to get photos. Unfortunately, I have forgotten how to do video on my camera and went to get my phone but that didn't seem to taking video either and I got loads of sky pictures, but very few whale ones!. Luckily Pete managed much better and he has got some fabulous footage of a whale breaching. There were 3 whales in the final pod we saw and Pete said it was much better than when he first went whale watching. It was wonderful to see such giants 'playing'
After a while we had to head back and it was a very reluctant party that did so. Back on shore, several of us has tickets to AQWA (Aquarium of Western Australia), so we headed over there. It was fantastic. An underwater tunnel with several varieties of sharks, rays and fish swimming above us and Loggerhead Turtles. We went round twice to capture the full experience, then went round the rest of the museum. They had divided it into various sections according to the latitude of the coastline and we found it very easy to navigate. There was also a section on which sea creatures to avoid. I must say, Australia does seem to have more than its fair share of deadly snakes, spiders and fish/marine life, but they are quite welcome to keep them all. There were also large exhibitions of native corals.
It was fascinating to discover so much about the secret life of the sea, and the experience was made much more interesting by one of the young guides who was so enthusiastic about it all and took pains to show Pete and I things we would otherwise have missed (like the tiny sting ray hiding under the sand) We spent about 2½ hours there all together, which didn't give us time to visit the cafe, but did give us enough time to view everything.
Tuesday 1 February 2011
Australian Adventure 2010 (continued)
Diary date: Monday 11th October 2010
Today I met Pete about 9.45 and we went to the 'Cafe on High', where Nena and I lunched the other day. After a delicious latte each we decided to visit the maritime museum. Pete had only had a quick look round last time he was here and I wanted to do the submarine tour, so we duly made our way there. We started off in the museum looking at the history of Fremantle harbour, then went on our sub tour. This was most interesting, even if the space was a little confined. HMS Ovens, the sub we looked around, was commissioned in 1968 and decommissioned in 1997 The chap in charge gave a very detailed commentary of everything we saw and we now know why the lights are always dim around the periscope area. It's so the sailors there don't lose night sight, as they use the periscope at night as well as during the day.
All bed space was miniscule to say the least, but the captain's cabin was almost worse. He had a to have a 'box' poked through into the control area to make his bunk long enough for him! There were also only 4 toilets for 70 souls!! And one shower. Each person (including officers and captain) was allowed to have one shower a week, lasting 90 seconds. The cook and the steward were allowed a shower every day for food hygiene reasons. This, of course, was luxury compared to early days of submarining and each sailor had his own bunk. Hot bunking which had happened in the early days was now a thing of the past. Apparently in the English navy when offered the luxury of a shower they opted for two buckets of water a week so they could have a good stand up wash!
After the sub tour we went for some lunch on the quayside and booked a lunch cruise for later in our holiday. We then went back to the museum and saw the rest of the exhibits, including the Australian Yacht that won the Americas cup a few years ago and the gold medal that one of the Oz team won in the Sydney olympics. It's the closest I shall ever get to Olympic Gold! All in all it was a good day and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Tomorrow we are going whale watching and Weds we are having lunch with Aunty. Thursday at present is free so I may get some sunbathing in. Friday we are going over to Rottnest Island for Swimming and cycling. At the w/e there are two family BBQs.
I had a lovely surprise tonight when I got back. One of the girls has left our dorm so there was a bottom bunk free and I promptly snaffled it, so i no longer have to do mountaineering to get into bed!
Today I met Pete about 9.45 and we went to the 'Cafe on High', where Nena and I lunched the other day. After a delicious latte each we decided to visit the maritime museum. Pete had only had a quick look round last time he was here and I wanted to do the submarine tour, so we duly made our way there. We started off in the museum looking at the history of Fremantle harbour, then went on our sub tour. This was most interesting, even if the space was a little confined. HMS Ovens, the sub we looked around, was commissioned in 1968 and decommissioned in 1997 The chap in charge gave a very detailed commentary of everything we saw and we now know why the lights are always dim around the periscope area. It's so the sailors there don't lose night sight, as they use the periscope at night as well as during the day.
All bed space was miniscule to say the least, but the captain's cabin was almost worse. He had a to have a 'box' poked through into the control area to make his bunk long enough for him! There were also only 4 toilets for 70 souls!! And one shower. Each person (including officers and captain) was allowed to have one shower a week, lasting 90 seconds. The cook and the steward were allowed a shower every day for food hygiene reasons. This, of course, was luxury compared to early days of submarining and each sailor had his own bunk. Hot bunking which had happened in the early days was now a thing of the past. Apparently in the English navy when offered the luxury of a shower they opted for two buckets of water a week so they could have a good stand up wash!
After the sub tour we went for some lunch on the quayside and booked a lunch cruise for later in our holiday. We then went back to the museum and saw the rest of the exhibits, including the Australian Yacht that won the Americas cup a few years ago and the gold medal that one of the Oz team won in the Sydney olympics. It's the closest I shall ever get to Olympic Gold! All in all it was a good day and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Tomorrow we are going whale watching and Weds we are having lunch with Aunty. Thursday at present is free so I may get some sunbathing in. Friday we are going over to Rottnest Island for Swimming and cycling. At the w/e there are two family BBQs.
I had a lovely surprise tonight when I got back. One of the girls has left our dorm so there was a bottom bunk free and I promptly snaffled it, so i no longer have to do mountaineering to get into bed!
Australian Adventure 2010 (continued)
Diary date: Sunday October 10th 2010
In all these posts I have hardly mentioned the weather. That's because it has been reliably sunny and warm every day, with temperatures on a par with those in Southern france. Absolutely delightful - I could stay here for ever!
Well, today, Sunday, I got up fairly early and walked up the road to the Tram stop - another adventure I had planned. It was so early I caught the first tram of the day! It takes one around some of the important sites of the town, including the fishing boat harbour, the old harbour where the £10 immigrants landed in Fremantle during the 50s and 60s, the Railway Station, the Markets, the Town Hall, Monument Hill and the Prison. I went round one and a half times, providing translation services for a French couple on the trip, then got off to visit the Fremantle Prison, one of the most visited sites in WA. It was built by the convicts that were brought over to provide labour to help build the foundling town of Fremantle. Apparently the message saying they were coming was on a slower boat than the one with the convicts on, so there was no accommodation for them when they arrived!
There are several tours available so i decided to go for the lot. Of course I couldn't fit them all in today, so did the 'Doing Time' tour and the 'Tunnels' tour. I have booked to do the torchlight one on Weds and hopefully I will be able to also do the 'Great Escapes' tour the same day. The doing time tour took us around the Prison as if we were prisoners being admitted. First we went to the reception area, where one was searched, valuables were handed in and 'prison greens' were given out to real prisoners. Following that we were shown various bits of the prison, including the exercise yards, (very small), the Prison Chapel, (Compulsory to attend 2 services on a Sunday!), the Kitchens, the Boiler house, where two prisoners spent all their time tending the boiler, sleeping in a room beside it - a rather larger bedroom than most prisoners had, and not so much guarded. We walked one of the wings and saw how it was divided into divisions to try and segregate the prisoners a little, very necessary when the prisoners rioted in 1988! we also saw the solitary confinement cells and observation cells for those on suicide watch and the segregation cels for paedos, judges, lawyers, cops etc! Finally we were shown the condemned cell and a few cells kitted out as they were at different times during the prisons' history. All of them, however, had the 'prisoner's ensuite' - a lidded pail for slops! I had a photo taken of me sitting in the condemned cell before I was told what it was. Apparently it took between 50 and 60 seconds from leaving that cell to the end of one's life. we were taken around to the 'gallows' and it was pretty horrid to walk in and see the rope hanging there, also the trap doors and the mechanism for opening them. That concluded that tour and I then went to the tunnels tour.
To ensure fresh drinking water for the prison a system of tunnels was excavated by the convicts/prisoners underneath the prison where there was an aquifer in the porous limestone. A large reservoir was also created under the prison garden, capable of holding something like 12,000,000 gallons of water. All this was done by the prisoners with hand tools only, by the light of kerosene lamps. It also counted as hard labour, but sometimes a prisoner would be sentenced to hard labour and weights, which meant they had to wear a weighted waist belt of 14 or 28 lbs. The weight was set by the sentencing judge. A misdemeanour could also entail the prisoner being shackled and /or obliged to wear ankle weights. Obviously working under such conditions was very debilitating, especially as it could get very hot down in the tunnels. The first part of the tunnels was a 'dry' excavation , when the general route of the tunnels was mapped out and this was followed by the 'wet' excavation when the tunnels were dug deeper, below the level of the water table, so the prisoners were working in water for all their shift. How long the shifts were isn't known, but what is known is that they were locked up for 14½ hours overnight, so one assumes that they were in the tunnels for the rest of the time.
They had to take their slop pails down with them to use if needed, then carry them up again at the end of the shift. When we went down, we were given coveralls, hard hat, climbing harness with safety lock system, and wellies. The prisoners went down in whatever they normally wore and several cases of trench foot were recorded. The tunnels however were a great success, and the prison was able to supply water to the town, as well as meeting its own needs, until water supply was taken over by a state body. Apparently there were no escapes from the tunnels, although there is anecdotal evidence that a lady was pegging out the washing in the garden of her house in Hampton road, which is over the tunnels area when a bedraggled man climbed out of her well and shuffled off down the side of the house. Normally on tis tour one is not allowed to take cameras, but as there were only two of us our guide bent the rules a little and allowed us ours. The tunnels are only just standing height for someone of my height (5'3") in their highest places and at times even I was almost bent double, so working on them must have been awful. There was no ventilation, as there is now, so the dust and odour must have been diabolical. After walking through the dry tunnels we went on a tour of the wet ones. for this we each had a plastic boat which we had to paddle. It was great fun for us down there and very interesting, but sobering to remember the conditions under which they had been built
In all these posts I have hardly mentioned the weather. That's because it has been reliably sunny and warm every day, with temperatures on a par with those in Southern france. Absolutely delightful - I could stay here for ever!
Well, today, Sunday, I got up fairly early and walked up the road to the Tram stop - another adventure I had planned. It was so early I caught the first tram of the day! It takes one around some of the important sites of the town, including the fishing boat harbour, the old harbour where the £10 immigrants landed in Fremantle during the 50s and 60s, the Railway Station, the Markets, the Town Hall, Monument Hill and the Prison. I went round one and a half times, providing translation services for a French couple on the trip, then got off to visit the Fremantle Prison, one of the most visited sites in WA. It was built by the convicts that were brought over to provide labour to help build the foundling town of Fremantle. Apparently the message saying they were coming was on a slower boat than the one with the convicts on, so there was no accommodation for them when they arrived!
There are several tours available so i decided to go for the lot. Of course I couldn't fit them all in today, so did the 'Doing Time' tour and the 'Tunnels' tour. I have booked to do the torchlight one on Weds and hopefully I will be able to also do the 'Great Escapes' tour the same day. The doing time tour took us around the Prison as if we were prisoners being admitted. First we went to the reception area, where one was searched, valuables were handed in and 'prison greens' were given out to real prisoners. Following that we were shown various bits of the prison, including the exercise yards, (very small), the Prison Chapel, (Compulsory to attend 2 services on a Sunday!), the Kitchens, the Boiler house, where two prisoners spent all their time tending the boiler, sleeping in a room beside it - a rather larger bedroom than most prisoners had, and not so much guarded. We walked one of the wings and saw how it was divided into divisions to try and segregate the prisoners a little, very necessary when the prisoners rioted in 1988! we also saw the solitary confinement cells and observation cells for those on suicide watch and the segregation cels for paedos, judges, lawyers, cops etc! Finally we were shown the condemned cell and a few cells kitted out as they were at different times during the prisons' history. All of them, however, had the 'prisoner's ensuite' - a lidded pail for slops! I had a photo taken of me sitting in the condemned cell before I was told what it was. Apparently it took between 50 and 60 seconds from leaving that cell to the end of one's life. we were taken around to the 'gallows' and it was pretty horrid to walk in and see the rope hanging there, also the trap doors and the mechanism for opening them. That concluded that tour and I then went to the tunnels tour.
To ensure fresh drinking water for the prison a system of tunnels was excavated by the convicts/prisoners underneath the prison where there was an aquifer in the porous limestone. A large reservoir was also created under the prison garden, capable of holding something like 12,000,000 gallons of water. All this was done by the prisoners with hand tools only, by the light of kerosene lamps. It also counted as hard labour, but sometimes a prisoner would be sentenced to hard labour and weights, which meant they had to wear a weighted waist belt of 14 or 28 lbs. The weight was set by the sentencing judge. A misdemeanour could also entail the prisoner being shackled and /or obliged to wear ankle weights. Obviously working under such conditions was very debilitating, especially as it could get very hot down in the tunnels. The first part of the tunnels was a 'dry' excavation , when the general route of the tunnels was mapped out and this was followed by the 'wet' excavation when the tunnels were dug deeper, below the level of the water table, so the prisoners were working in water for all their shift. How long the shifts were isn't known, but what is known is that they were locked up for 14½ hours overnight, so one assumes that they were in the tunnels for the rest of the time.
They had to take their slop pails down with them to use if needed, then carry them up again at the end of the shift. When we went down, we were given coveralls, hard hat, climbing harness with safety lock system, and wellies. The prisoners went down in whatever they normally wore and several cases of trench foot were recorded. The tunnels however were a great success, and the prison was able to supply water to the town, as well as meeting its own needs, until water supply was taken over by a state body. Apparently there were no escapes from the tunnels, although there is anecdotal evidence that a lady was pegging out the washing in the garden of her house in Hampton road, which is over the tunnels area when a bedraggled man climbed out of her well and shuffled off down the side of the house. Normally on tis tour one is not allowed to take cameras, but as there were only two of us our guide bent the rules a little and allowed us ours. The tunnels are only just standing height for someone of my height (5'3") in their highest places and at times even I was almost bent double, so working on them must have been awful. There was no ventilation, as there is now, so the dust and odour must have been diabolical. After walking through the dry tunnels we went on a tour of the wet ones. for this we each had a plastic boat which we had to paddle. It was great fun for us down there and very interesting, but sobering to remember the conditions under which they had been built
Australian Adventure 2010 (continued)
Diary date Saturday 9th October 2010
When I got back last night I had sand everywhere, so had a shower to get rid of some of it. In one pocket I had half the Great Autralian desert! It was also in my ears, up my nose and other places too delicate to mention. I thought I had got rid of it all before I went to bed, but when I woke up in the middle of the night for a pee, I found i was mistaken in that thought. I also had a slight accident getting off the top bunk. I missed the bed below and fell hard onto the floor, waking the other people in the room, except fot the one who has spoken to me about my snoring! Luckily there was not much damage - a very bruised elbow and a carpet burn to my arm. I also discovered a bruise from where I had fallen off the sand board. I forgot to mention that after falling off the sand board I decided to do it the way I sledge, on my tum, and managed MUCH better. Later I tried to do it like skateboarding, on a shallower slope, but the board tried running away with me, so I quickly gave that up.
After I'd been to the loo and emptied more of the great Oz desert onto the floor I went back to bed, waking at 7, the again at 9. Both times I decided I was too tired to get up, although at 9 I decided I could do a little reading , so having finished my book of Oz slang, I started reading the history of Freo. It was fascinating, but I was still tired, so I went back to sleep till 1pm, when I decided I really should get up and phoned Pete to see what he was doing. We arranged to meet and spent the afternoon drinking coffee and eating cakes, in between buying Pete some new T shirts and wandering around the inside of the Freo markets.In many ways they are like any other market around the world - you expect to get real bargains, but you never do. However, we found some fairly nice souvenirs for Pete's mum and a work colleague. What we did find fascinating was the number and range of stalls. There are over 150 of them inside and out and you can buy almost anything, from homewares to an apple, or a delicious takeaway meal and an authentic Australian musical instrument! It was almost like a small town in itself and the buildings were absolutely fantastic on the inside. They were built back in the colonial days, (1897) when instead of designing buildings that could go up as quickly as possible, they were designed to show the skill of the workers erecting them. Certainly well worth a look if you ever visit Freo yourself. We also made some plans for next week, so as I have internet access and he doesn't I need to go and book some trips. More tomorrow!
When I got back last night I had sand everywhere, so had a shower to get rid of some of it. In one pocket I had half the Great Autralian desert! It was also in my ears, up my nose and other places too delicate to mention. I thought I had got rid of it all before I went to bed, but when I woke up in the middle of the night for a pee, I found i was mistaken in that thought. I also had a slight accident getting off the top bunk. I missed the bed below and fell hard onto the floor, waking the other people in the room, except fot the one who has spoken to me about my snoring! Luckily there was not much damage - a very bruised elbow and a carpet burn to my arm. I also discovered a bruise from where I had fallen off the sand board. I forgot to mention that after falling off the sand board I decided to do it the way I sledge, on my tum, and managed MUCH better. Later I tried to do it like skateboarding, on a shallower slope, but the board tried running away with me, so I quickly gave that up.
After I'd been to the loo and emptied more of the great Oz desert onto the floor I went back to bed, waking at 7, the again at 9. Both times I decided I was too tired to get up, although at 9 I decided I could do a little reading , so having finished my book of Oz slang, I started reading the history of Freo. It was fascinating, but I was still tired, so I went back to sleep till 1pm, when I decided I really should get up and phoned Pete to see what he was doing. We arranged to meet and spent the afternoon drinking coffee and eating cakes, in between buying Pete some new T shirts and wandering around the inside of the Freo markets.In many ways they are like any other market around the world - you expect to get real bargains, but you never do. However, we found some fairly nice souvenirs for Pete's mum and a work colleague. What we did find fascinating was the number and range of stalls. There are over 150 of them inside and out and you can buy almost anything, from homewares to an apple, or a delicious takeaway meal and an authentic Australian musical instrument! It was almost like a small town in itself and the buildings were absolutely fantastic on the inside. They were built back in the colonial days, (1897) when instead of designing buildings that could go up as quickly as possible, they were designed to show the skill of the workers erecting them. Certainly well worth a look if you ever visit Freo yourself. We also made some plans for next week, so as I have internet access and he doesn't I need to go and book some trips. More tomorrow!
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