Australia 8/19/2022 - 9/6/2022

Saturday 9/3/2022 - Fremantle Prison, Fremantle Markets

One thing that we had wanted to do since visiting Perth in 2019 was to tour Fremantle Prison. It is a World Heritage Site, instrumental in the colonization of Western Australia. Sonam Tshering knew of our interest, and planned a Saturday visit, booking two tours for us: the Tunnels Tour and the Convict Prison Tour.

We woke up at 7 a.m. and had a quick breakfast quesadilla with sausage, egg, and cheese between two pieces of paratha. Yum!

We left the house at 8:40 and got to Fremantle in around half an hour. It was chilly and lightly raining. We picked up our tickets in the gift shop and met Deb for our 9:45 a.m. Tunnels Tour. As we walked through the prison yard, Deb opened a hatch and had us look down. There was a ladder, and this was the emergency exit from the tunnels. We looked down into the inky blackness. This just increased our excitement and anticipation about going into the tunnels.

We were a group of 12, and we were brought to a staging area where we watched a short movie about the history of the tunnel system beneath the prison.

In the 1850's prisoners dug through 12 meters of limestone to reach water for three wells. This water was also used by the colony of Fremantle.

Between 1874 and 1876, a large water tank was constructed. Water was pumped from the wells to fill the tank, which was gravity fed to town to replenish ships with a fresh water supply.

The prisoners dug 750 meters of tunnels in the late 1880's / early 1890's, creating a catchment for artesian water between the previously dug well shafts. The tunnels are a meter and a half wide and between 1.5 and 3 meters tall. A 1.6 million liter subterranean reservoir was dug out.

As they used more and more fresh water from the aquifer, sea water took its place and eventually contaminated the wells in the late 1890's.

Today we would be descending into the subterranean tunnel system. We put our belongings in lockers (no phones or cameras were allowed in the tunnels, as it is too much of a distraction and you need to have your hands free and your wits about you) and donned gumboots, hardhats, and headlamps. They put us in harnesses and small life jackets. As we descended 20 meters by narrow ladders, we were hooked in using a fall arrester. They used a GlideLoc safety system which the fall arrester hooked into. There was a 90 degree toggle to get from one ladder to the next. They gave us a comprehensive safety briefing; safety is clearly on the top of their minds.

We walked through tunnels and were glad that we had the gumboots on because there was standing water in some areas that was higher than normal shoe height. The walls were scarred from the pickaxes that were used to dig them out by hand. There were also wooden beams shoring up the shafts in some areas.

We then got to a spot where the tunnels were more flooded, and we got into 2-man boats ("replica convict punts") from which we explored the areas of the tunnel complex which were more submerged in water. We had paddles, but the tunnels were so narrow that we didn't even need to use them. Instead, at Deb's suggestion, we propelled ourselves with our hands on the sides of the tunnels. We had to be somewhat gentle to avoid creating crumbs of limestone from above in the rough-hewn walls. We also had to be careful not to ram the boat in front of us, as we were floating in single file. The tunnels were straight, and had sharp 90 degree turns. You had to manouver the boat in such a way to make the difficult turns, and we all ended up bumping one another's boats at these corners. Lots of giggling and fun ensued.

It was a real adventure. At one point Deb had us turn off our headlamps, and we were enveloped by darkness. The tunnels actually run beyond the footprint of the above-ground prison complex. There were certain locations where Deb told us to be quiet and listen, and we could hear traffic noise from above, because we were under the roadway.

Deb showed us the emergency exit which we had seen from the ground level. She explained that all of the employees have to go through training to learn how to evacuate someone from the tunnels using this exit in case of emergency.

When the tour was complete (we didn't even really scratch the surface of the full tunnel complex), we disembarked from our boats and were hooked back into the ladder for our ascent back to the surface. I was a bit worried about the climb, since I have weak arms and it was a long ladder. I got momentum and went quickly. Deb mentioned that I could take my time and didn't have to go so fast, but I felt that I had to keep my momentum or I wouldn't make it. I successfully made it to the top, and was unhooked from the fall arrester. We took some photos before taking off our gear.

The whole safety briefing plus adventure took about 2 hours and 15 minutes. We went into several small museums which included such artifacts as convict uniforms, leg irons, search lights, locks, keys, nails, axe-heads, toothbrushes, and glass bottles.

At 1 p.m., we met Brett, our guide for the Convict Prison Tour. He was a very engaging speaker, and kept the adults and children entertained on the tour.

Fremantle was founded as a free colony in 1829. They needed a lot of labor in order to complete civic infrastructure projects, so they requested prisoners from Britain to help. Britain sent a letter saying that they would send convicts, but the ship carrying the convicts overtook the ship carrying the letter. Convicts arrived in Fremantle on June 2, 1850, before anyone even knew that their request had been granted. Obviously, nobody was prepared for their arrival. They created a temporary prison in warehouses by the dock, and the first order of business for the convicts was to build a proper prison.

The four story main cell block area of the prison was reminiscent of a ship, and with good reason. The ship which carried the original prisoners was repurposed, largely due to a lack of building supplies in the new colony. There were nets strung above the first floor, so that prisoners could not commit suicide by jumping from one of the top floors. We joked that it is also probably handy these days if anyone were to drop their cell phone from one of the top floors.

The first convicts were guilty of relatively minor offenses. Fremantle prison was originally conceived as a rehabilitation prison. People would get time off their sentences if they worked hard, and they could be released early for good behavior. Prisoners were contributing to the success of the colony, and could look forward to being released into a colony that had a better standard of life due to their own hard work. There was a documented schedule as to when men could earn their "ticket of leave" based on their servitude. One thing that we found interesting was that the administration was particularly fond of forgers, as they were literate and were capable of doing jobs that other men could not.

When prisoners first arrived at Fremantle, they were kept in solitary confinement in small cells with nothing but a hammock, a small table, and a small window for several months to see how they fared. Then they would graduate to a large room which housed 60 prisoners for 60 days. This was a test to see how they behaved. Those who fought or displayed other poor behavior would be punished (often by having to deal with the buckets of excrement from the 60 people in the room...there was no indoor plumbing in the prison, even up until it was decommisioned in 1991). Those who exhibited good behavior and could get along with others would be rewarded. Once they had completed this 60-day rite of passage, they would be put in standard cells and put to work.

In the beginning, prisoners were treated relatively well, and nobody tried to escape. Then they got a warden, Dr. John Stephen Hampton, who was more keen on punishment than rehabilitation, and conditions worsened. Now people tried to escape, with varying degrees of success.

One particularly famous prisoner known as Moondyne Joe kept escaping and committing more crimes so they eventually reinforced his cell with boards of jarrah wood and thousands of nails, and chained him to the floor by his neck. The warden said that if he could escape from that, he would be given a pardon. Eventually, the prison doctor said that his health had deteriorated as a result of being confined to his room, and dictated that he needed some time outside. He was sentenced to breaking rocks. As he did so, it created a huge mountain of debris between him and the guards tasked with watching him. Out of their view, he busted through a perimeter wall. He created a dummy wearing his clothes and then escaped. He was recaptured after two years. After four additional years of captivity, the warden's successor decided to make good on his predecessor's promise to free him.

We were brought into Moondyne Joe's reinforced cell. It was small and dark, due to the extra layers of dark jarrah wood nailed to the walls.

Next, Brett led us to the Anglican chapel, built in 1856-1857, a light and airy room with large windows (the only windows in the prison without bars) and a wooden ceiling reminiscent of a ship's keel. Church was the one place where prisoners were given a semblance of normalcy, away from their cold hard limestone cells.

Even those in solitary confinement were still allowed to go to church, but they were brought in one at a time to the balcony. They were placed in chairs which blocked their peripheral vision, so they were only allowed to look straight ahead at the officiant. There was no opportunity to interact with or even see fellow prisoners. The Ten Commandments painted on the wall were interesting. Instead of "Thou shalt not kill" (since the death penalty was in full force at the prison), they changed it to "Thou shalt do no murder."

One forger, James Walsh, created beautiful sketches on the walls of his cell. There were portraits, angels, Classical motifs, and architectural drawings. We were able to enter the cell and admire all of the artwork. Brett said that this was perhaps a prototype for art in the Catholic chapel.

Originally, Irish and Catholic prisoners were not allowed at Fremantle, but later on they were accepted. There was a Catholic chapel, but it was much smaller and less airy than the Anglican chapel. There was some cleaning and restoration work done in the Catholic chapel during Covid, and they found evidence of prior artwork under the more "commercial" artwork, and they suspect that the earlier artwork may have been created by James Walsh.

We went to the solitary confinement wing, where the cells had double doors to get in. We were shut into one of the cells, but we didn't get the full effect because there were a bunch of children in the group who screamed when it got dark and immediately turned on the flashlights on their cell phones.

Brett showed us the flogging area and the cat o' nine tails whip which was used on offending prisoners. He playfully asked for volunteers to take a place at the flogging station, and the kids were petrified. He was able to keep the attention of both kids and adults.

The prison was in use until 1991, but the later history of the prison was covered in some of the other tours on offer. We had been more interested in the founding of the prison, which is why we had chosen this particular tour. The whole prison tourism experience was very well run, with timed entrances and a museum where you could spend time between tours. We were quite pleased with our choice of tours, and learned quite a bit about the history of the prison and the founding of the colony.

We were done with our prison tours at 2:15 p.m. By now, the rain had stopped, and our parking meter was about to expire, so we moved the car to another nearby lot and proceeded on foot to the Fremantle Markets. We didn't quite know what to expect; would this be an outdoor market covered by tarps, or would it be an indoor market? It turned out to be the latter, an old-school brick food hall built in 1897. It is open on the weekend, and contains a variety of vendors: produce sellers, food stalls, and souvenir stands.

The Sonams have wanted to go to a Tibetan restaurant here (Tibet Stove) for years, and this was a good opportunity. Unlike some of the restaurants and food stalls, this restaurant had a couple of tables and chairs where we could sit and have lunch without feeling like we were in the way as crowds descended on the market.

One of the owners of Tibet Stove is Tibetan and the other is Bhutanese. We got beef dumplings with "hot" chili sauce. The proprietors were afraid it would be too hot for us, but then Craig ate it and told them it wasn't hot enough. They said that was the first time anyone had ever told them that! We also sampled some Tibetan noodles served chilled, although with the cool weather, the hot dumplings hit the spot more than the chilled noodles did. The dumplings were so good that we got another plate full, with lots more hot sauce. We had lemon soda to drink.

After a quick lunch, we wandered around the market, taking it all in. I took a photo of Craig and Sonam Choki next to a bargain basement Peppa Pig. We stopped at Fremantle Fudge, where they gave out three free samples per person. Their fudge had amusing names (Barry White was the name of a smooth and mellow fudge, LOL). We wound up buying three large pieces for $15 (Brownie, Barry White, and Caramoo). Giving out samples definitely worked; for us and other customers as well. It was so good that people who sampled it mostly ended up buying.

We left the market, walked around a bit and looked at the architecture of the city. We saw a group of scantily clad women on the street; it seemed to be a bachelorette party, as they all convened onto a party bus. We were fully dressed and chilly; they must have been very cold!

We walked back to the car past the Fremantle Oval, the home of several Australian Rules Football clubs. We wandered inside. The grandstand seating seemed decidedly old-school, though the Oval only dates back to 1986.

Then we drove back to the house, where we chatted and had some chips. We had bought the Sonams a Fremantle Prison magnet in secret, and stealthily put it on the fridge to see how long it would be before they noticed it.

Sonam Tshering and Craig went to Cellarbrations, a local liquor store, to buy what Sonam calls "that Indian beer" (IPA) for Craig, as well as some ciders for myself and Sonam Tshering. Craig's beer was Beerfarm IPA ("A ship load of hops"). Sonam Choki and I stayed back at the house and chatted.

For dinner, we had soup with homemade noodles. It was delicious. We looked at more Tik-Toks and had a lot of laughs mimicing the lazy koalas and dancing kangaroos we had seen at Yanchep National Park yesterday. The Sonams finally noticed the Fremantle Prison magnet on their fridge at 11 p.m., and we all got a good laugh out of it.

We went to bed at 11:15 after a fun and interesting day.

Fremantle Prison

Fremantle Markets