Freo! Freeeeeo!
Trip Start
Sep 08, 2011
1
45
85
Trip End
Jan 08, 2012
Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Fremantle Prison was a fully functional prison up until 1991, but, as I learnt on the tour (aptly named, Doing Time), the conditions were horrific and it was eventually closed down because it had no plumbing. So what? You might ask. Let’s think about that for a moment. Prisoners were only allowed 3 showers a week, spent up to 16 hours a day in their cells (2 to a cell) and had one slop bucket for each cell (and I saw the slop buckets – they were not big). The other 8 hours of the day were spent working, or if the prisoners had no work in the yard. Conditions in the yard were horrendous; there were various yards, each holding up to 160 prisoners at a time, with no cover – the prisoners had to endure whatever the climate threw at them with no respite – up to 50ºC heat in the summer or cold, wet conditions in the summer, with no shelter... for eight hours. No wonder, the prison was the scene of a violent riot a few years before it was closed down. Essentially, as the guide explained, Fremantle Prison was the last punitive prison in the Australian system – rehabilitation was a dirty word. It even has its own execution chamber – death by hanging.
After the prison, Helen and I headed back to Perth, but she stopped off on the way to show me her favourite spot in Perth: Point Walter. It was a lovely spot, but it totally freaked me out. Why? It has a sand bar that stretches for about 1km across the Swan River. Basically, it’s a bridge made of sand. We walked out on the sand bar and I was more than a little uncomfortable – after all, it’s a bridge...made of sand. How safe is that? I appreciate that it’s a wonderful little place and I’m sure I’ll love it if we go back, but as a first impression, I was more than a little suspicious of it, as I’d never seen anything like it before. Only in Australia, eh?
