Saturday 10th December 2022
In Asia, we tended to not bother with breakfast (unless it was included in our hotel rate and looked particularly good) and eat lunch and dinner out. We’d often share one dish between us for either lunch or dinner. In Australia, eating out is much more expensive (and I imagine restaurants are less amenable to us ordering just one dish between us), so we’ve decided to cook breakfast then eat an earlyish dinner out.
We’d picked up a few things at the supermarket yesterday, so this morning cooked some scrambled eggs on toast with smoked salmon. We sat our on our balcony to eat, which was very pleasant.
After breakfast, we walked to West Perth train station to catch the train to Fremantle. The trains are very frequent and it’s about 25 minutes journey.
We walked from the station towards the prison, and passed several ice cream shops along the way. It didn’t take too long before we found one that had banana ice cream, Pete’s favourite flavour. We ordered a cup with one scoop of banana and one scoop of caramel rock salt to share. It was very good ice cream, the caramel wasn’t too sweet and the banana had a proper banana flavour.
We continued walking until we reached Fremantle Markets, a bustling indoor market that dates back to 1897. There are a lot of interesting independent small stalls, selling various food products and crafts. It’s an interesting place to wander around and we got to taste quite a few samples, including purple wine (which seemed very gimmicky), some iced fruit teas (very sweet), some organic wines (the Chardonnay was very good, even though I’m often not a Chardonnay fan), some gins, and some fire cider (ACV with a load of ginger, garlic and spices, which was actually pretty tasty and would make a great salad dressing).
After we’d seen all of the market, we continued walking to Fremantle prison. We booked a slot for the next guided tour (which was $22, or about £13, per person) and had about 15 minutes to wait until the tour started.
The tour itself was fascinating, and we were lucky to have a very enthusiastic and engaging guide. The prison itself was built by convicts in 1855 and apparently underwent very few changes until it closed in 1991. The cells were eventually made bigger (every two cells were knocked into one) but they still used buckets as the cell toilets when the prison ceased to operate in 1991.
In the gatehouse, there are a couple of free exhibits and a small art gallery. We had a look at all the exhibits, before walking to the WA Shipwreck Museum. This is free to enter, although donations are encouraged. It’s a decent museum and tells the story of the various European ships that have had the misfortune of being shipwrecked off the Western Australian coast over the centuries.
The WA Shipwreck Museum is right next to Bathers Beach. It’s a surprisingly small beach, but very attractive.
We walked along the beach, then continued along Success Boat Harbour before heading inland to Piscari Fish & Chips.
We’d been debating between fish and chips or pizza for dinner, but then decided the perfect solution would be to share a portion of hake and chips between us before heading to a very highly rated pizzeria for a shared pizza.
We’ve not had fish and chips for ages, and this one was very good – succulent, flaky hake in a beautifully crisp batter.
Eugene’s Pizzeria was about 40 minutes walk from Piscari Fish & Chips, so we made use of the Dayrider ticket we’d bought this morning to get a bus some of the way. Eugene’s Pizzeria is more of a takeaway joint, but they do have a couple of tables for dining in. We ordered a capricciosa to share, and sat outside. The pizza was very good, though not quite as nice as the one we had in Kuala Lumpur about a week ago.
We then took a bus back to the train station, and caught a train back to Perth. This time we got off at the central Perth station, and walked along a little of the Rio Tinto Christmas Lights Trail on the way back to our hotel.
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 