I've had a roaringly fabulous weekend. I met up with the fabulous Carl (aka Alchemy) when I arrived here and went to dinner with him and his very lovely new ladyfriend.
Yesterday, we went to
Fremantle Prison, which is now a heritage site and tourist attraction. Like a kind of Alcatraz for Western Australia. Just way,
way nastier than The Rock.
But we didn't just do the guided tour of the prison. Oh no. Carl had booked us two tickets on the "Tunnels Tour". You see, the limestone below the prison had been dug out by years and years of convict labour, to expolit the aquifer and bring up fresh water. There are now a maze of tunnels 20m or so below the tunnels, many of which are semi-submerged and have to be navigated in a small boat.
Hence the potholing kit:
The first thing you've got to do is to climb down a 20m ladder:
Sadly, you can't take your camera down there, but I can report that it was a seriously cool thing to do. It's quite arduous and we even had to be breathalized beforehand! We spent about two and a half hours on the tour and walked and rowed our way down loads of different parts of the tunnels, every metre of which was dug over a century ago by convicts in chains with little more than acetelyne lamps and picks.
The rest of the prison was pretty grim (but really interesting). Here's the gatehouse:
The main cellblock (also built by convicts):
Here's Carl again:
Believe it or not, they hire this place out for weddings! Yeah, there were people getting hitched in the prison chapel. The reception was in the cellblock!
Here's what a convict cell would have looked like in the mid 1800's:
And this is where they put you if you were really naughty:
The governor's office:
Carl, on a closed visit:
The Yard:
Fremantle prison is by far and away the nastiest place that I think I've ever been outside of say, Swindon. Oddly, I really enjoyed the day.
