Our WA Trip - Part Eight - Fremantle

So trying to roll out of bed this morning after yesterday's boogie boarding fun-ness was, well, not so fun. I'm so stiff it's crazy! And even though I promise I was thickly coated with sunscreen yesterday, I managed to burn patches on my arms and at the end of my nose. This morning the redness had all turned nicely into more tan. I love my complexion (thank you, Daddy!). The rashie shirts that Jen and I bought in Perth to help protect us from the sun while swimming worked great. So great, in fact, that we now both have totally un-pretty lines across our arms and at our necks. I know, I know... life continues to be rough.

Today's going to be a quiet day, what with doing laundry, grocery shopping, and all that normal boring stuff. So here's yet another installment from our WA trip...

Let's see... we're now up to January 17th, the day after we did the Wave Rock trip. We had three days left in Perth and surrounds before catching the train back across the continent, and wanted to make the most of it. Our first task was to return our rental car to downtown Perth. Perth drivers are terrible and don't like letting you change lanes or merge, which is annoying. Boy am I glad that Jen did all of the city driving! She had to let all of her "angry Torontonian" out in order to drive in Perth. We had a near-miss with a car just a block away from the rental depot, but thanks to Jen's quick reflexes, we avoided a collision. PHEW! When we did return the car, the girl who checked the car for damages etc. remarked that it was "very dirty". Well, duh! We drove it down miles and miles of dirt road! I would like to point out that the car was orange, and the dirt was orange (this being Australia and all), so what was the problem?

Anyway. It was really hot again - over 40C - so we spent the rest of the day in malls and other indoor spaces. We were on a bit of a hunt for new pants for me. The day before, as I went to take in the laundry at Pat's house, I discovered I'd somehow manage to put a HUGE rip in the butt of my capris (as in, I could put my head through the rip!). This was not good - the capris were the super-comfy pants I was planning on wearing all the way home on the train. So off we went, looking for more capris. Now there's a way to feel homesick... when our search through the downtown core came up empty, we took a bus out to a suburban mall. But looking through the store directory didn't help at all - we didn't recognize a single store on the list besides Kmart!

By the end of the day I still had no new capris, but I did have a pair of swimming flippers. (I got a diving mask and snorkel for Christmas from our friend Irene.) And Jen and I pooled our money to buy a bag for our boogie boards, which sure made them a whole lot easier to get home. We headed back to Pat and Rob's earlier than usual, since it was just too hot to do anything else. We spent the rest of the evening watching TV and sitting directly under the air conditioner. Jen's bites were still really bugging her, so she finally took some antihistamine before heading off to bed.

The next morning, I was fully expecting Jen to be a wee bit groggy when I woke her up. Ha ha! She was more than groggy... she was MELLOW. As in, probably high from the drugs she'd taken the night before. We'd been warned before coming to Australia that the local painkillers etc. were much stronger than we're used to, and apparently so are the antihistamines! Poor Jen... she was really funny to watch. You could SEE her thought process as she tried to do simple things like walk, open doors, and answer questions. She told me later that it felt like her head was stuffed with wool and she had to concentrate really hard in order to do anything. What concerned me was that she was still clearly feeling the effects of the drugs more than 12 hours after taking them! She remained in this strange mellow state until well into the afternoon.

However, our time in WA was rapidly running out, so we headed off on our day's adventures anyhow. We caught the bus to Fremantle, a port town that's literally right next to Perth. Downtown "Freo" is well known for its funky markets, so that's where we headed. We started at the E-shed markets, which are right on the waterfront in an old converted warehouse. Upon exiting the markets at the far end, we discovered we were right by the Maritime Museum, so we went in to take a look around.

The Maritime Museum broke our long streak of good museums. Don't get me wrong - they had some excellent displays of famous ships etc. (take a look at this picture, which depicts a moment from a yacht race in the open ocean), but the galleries were confusing and lacking introductory text to tell you why they were there. However we did a tour of a WWII submarine as part of our visit, and that was definitely cool. The tour guide was excellent and recounted all sorts of stories/experiences from submariner life. The tour was claustrophobic, to say the least! Jen was still in her mellow phase throughout the tour, and I spent half the time worrying about whether she was going to make it up/down the narrow stairwells in the sub!

We spent the afternoon wandering around the main Fremantle markets. Wow do they have funky shops here! I bought a metal torch-cut leafy sea dragon, which will hang in my bathroom when I get home. We also met an Australian kids author, Wendy Binks. She's written a pair of childrens' books, centered around a family of emus. Jen and I had seen her books elsewhere and were really charmed by the stories and the illustrations. Well, turns out Wendy lives in Fremantle and has a stall at the market, where she sells her artwork - and her books. So we bought both books and got them signed! I also finally found a pair of super-comfy pants to wear on the train. Hooray!

Our real purpose for visiting Fremantle was to go on the torchlight prison tour. We had been told by a number of folks that it was "really good" and "scary". Jen and I beg to differ. It might have just been the night that we went, but we felt the tours were poorly timed and not scary at all. Apparently the idea was for each tour group to feel like they were the only ones there as they wandered through the vast prison, but so many tours were squished together that we kept running into other groups. The tour guide in front of ours was also taking way too long at every stop, which meant that in several spots we ended up around the corner, out of sight, waiting for our turn.

They got us to jump once, when we were in the main cell block. the tour guide made us look up and note the fencing that had been installed over our heads. Apparently it was there to keep inmates from throwing themselves off the higher walkways to their deaths, and so was known as suicide grating. Well once we'd finished at this spot and were about to move on, and as our tour guide was gathering us all up, there was suddenly this horrific scream from above and a dummy - dressed in period prison garb - landed on the screening just over our heads. I screamed and practically jumped sideways into Jen's arms. She just rolled her eyes and remarked "you've got to be kidding...". Ha! (Clearly Jen was out of her mellow phase by this time.)

The rest of the prison tour went pretty much as expected. When we went into the solitary confinement cells, an actor dressed as a prisoner burst out of a cell at one point and yakked with us about what it had been like to be in solitary. At another point, another actor regaled us with tales of escape attempts - including a few that succeeded. Unfortunately, because we were squished up behind the slow tour in front of us, we knew when these scares were coming, so they weren't scary at all. On the other hand, we got to keep the little torches (flashlights) that were given to us at the start of the tour!

We had only one more day in Western Australia, and we'd be spending it out at Rottnest Island. But that was definitely a whole adventure on its own... more later...