Run For the Hills June 25, 2006
Holly and I made our breakfast appearance around 8:30 this morning. This is a late start for us but because the Fremantle Mariner’s Museum didn’t open until 10 there was not a big rush to get out the door.
The museum was worth the wait with exhibits of ship wrecks from the area, and some of the history of how the colony was founded, all displayed very well. We wandered through the museum for about two hours before heading to a structure called the Roundhouse. The Roundhouse was the city jail, the hill that the time ball and cannon were hoisted and fired everyday at 1PM so that mariners could set their clocks, a lookout point during several wars and also had a tunnel where the whale oil was unloaded. For us it was a place to enjoy another beautiful day.
After a quick lunch and a little unsuccessful Aboriginal art shopping we headed to the Fremantle Prison (don’t ask, we have some twisted need to see where people were incarcerated) for a tour. The prison was built in 1855 to house convicts from England that were going to be used for road, bridge and other civil engineering projects. Their first project was, you guessed it, building the prison that would house them while they did other projects. It is an impressive structure with thick limestone walls, solitary confinement cells and a gallows where 44 people met their maker. Surprisingly, this building remained the prison for Fremantle until 1991.
After the prison tour we grabbed the car and drove two hours to Northam, a small town in the Avon River Valley located in the Darling Mountains. Holly had acquired some tourist brochures during the trip and we stopped in route to call a B&B and were fortunate that the first one we called had a vacancy. We arrived at the Liddlelow on Avon B&B and are now settled in and taking it easy.
Tonight will be an early one as tomorrow we will get up about 5:30AM to go flying in one of those new-fangled hot air balloons.
The museum was worth the wait with exhibits of ship wrecks from the area, and some of the history of how the colony was founded, all displayed very well. We wandered through the museum for about two hours before heading to a structure called the Roundhouse. The Roundhouse was the city jail, the hill that the time ball and cannon were hoisted and fired everyday at 1PM so that mariners could set their clocks, a lookout point during several wars and also had a tunnel where the whale oil was unloaded. For us it was a place to enjoy another beautiful day.
After a quick lunch and a little unsuccessful Aboriginal art shopping we headed to the Fremantle Prison (don’t ask, we have some twisted need to see where people were incarcerated) for a tour. The prison was built in 1855 to house convicts from England that were going to be used for road, bridge and other civil engineering projects. Their first project was, you guessed it, building the prison that would house them while they did other projects. It is an impressive structure with thick limestone walls, solitary confinement cells and a gallows where 44 people met their maker. Surprisingly, this building remained the prison for Fremantle until 1991.
After the prison tour we grabbed the car and drove two hours to Northam, a small town in the Avon River Valley located in the Darling Mountains. Holly had acquired some tourist brochures during the trip and we stopped in route to call a B&B and were fortunate that the first one we called had a vacancy. We arrived at the Liddlelow on Avon B&B and are now settled in and taking it easy.
Tonight will be an early one as tomorrow we will get up about 5:30AM to go flying in one of those new-fangled hot air balloons.
posted by Gary and Holly Davis @ 6:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home