Day 3… 29/10/24
Fremantle…..or will Diane ever see a whale.
We didn’t have a plan when we woke up this morning. Probably because we weren’t sure how we would be feeling.
We are here for a wedding, as you may remember. The groom’s brother posted something on WhatsApp. He mentioned having gone whale watching off Fremantle and said he had seen Humpback Whales. One of Diane’s ambitions is to see a whale. When she read that our day was decided. A whale watching trip was booked.
The boat left from Fremantle at One o’clock. Perth Railway station is about a five minute walk from the hotel. We decided to take the train. It takes about 30 minutes. The trains are basic but comfortable and air conditioned. As you arrive into Fremantle there is a good view of the container port.
I don’t suppose that anyone other than me would be that interested. Way back in the day, I was a Merchant Seaman. Fremantle was one of the ports I visited quite often. It doesn’t look as if it has changed too much since then. The ships are bigger, and there are more cranes. But, it is still recognizable as the port I used to visit.
That wasn’t why we were here. Neither was buying clothes in charity shops. We were walking down Market Street looking for somewhere to have a coffee. We passed an Australian Red Cross charity shop. Diane disappeared. I knew exactly where she had gone. After a quarter of an hour, she reappeared with a blouse and a grin on her face.
We also had a trip into a shop selling opals. The ladies who ran the shop told us a lot about their product. All very interesting, but I don’t think anything caught Diane’s eye. We did buy something for ‘Tilda. I hope she will like it. It has an opal chip rather than a proper opal. Hence, it was a lot cheaper.
Then disaster struck. While we were having coffee, Diane took out her phone. She wanted to find out where to go to catch the whale-watching boat. On it was an email telling us that the trip had been canceled. Will Diane ever get to see a whale??
We decided to explore Fremantle instead.
When I said that Fremantle hadn’t changed very much, I forgot something significant. The event happened in 1987, or more exactly in 1983, when Australia 2 beat the American yacht. It became the first yacht, other than the United States’, to win America’s Cup. This meant that Australia’s defense of America’s Cup would take place in West Australia. To be more exact, it happened in Fremantle. Overnight, Fremantle transformed from a pretty sleepy commercial/fishing port. It became the trendiest spot of waterfront property in the entire world. The yachting community descended on Fremantle to watch and take part in America’s Cup.
The area along the river front, which had been quite run down, was transformed into high end apartments. It now features expensive restaurants and high end coffee shops. That has quietened down but the effects can still be seen and felt.
One of the by-products of this activity is the Little Creatures brewery. As it was about lunch time we decided to visit. Tasting paddles seemed to be the way to go. I chose the ten sample paddle. That is about eight or nine more beers compared to what was available in Fremantle the last time I was here. It seemed to be an improvement.
One of them was Swan Draught. It was about the only beer that could be bought in WA 40 or 50 years ago.
The ship used to buy it canned for the trip home. It was known as a hangover in every can. It wasn’t too bad. Most of them were quite drinkable, the Freo Lager and the Pacific Ale were very good. As was the pizza we had to eat.
Diane was more conservative. She had the four beer paddle sampler.
Having had lunch, we continued our wander around Fremantle, or Freo, to its friends.
It still has quite few traditional Australian pub/hotel buildings with balconies all the way round.
We bumped into the West Australian Premier, but he didn’t seem to want to talk us, so we ignored him. We couldn’t go whale-watching. There wasn’t much else to do in Freo. We got the train back to Perth.
A Scotsman in Suburbia 