We made a list on our travels of all the things that we wanted to make sure we did on the way back through. This list included things like taking pictures of various signs, giving Adelaide a second chance, seeing tourist attractions, watching a sunset from the west coast and visiting Fremantle Prison. Today we not only got to erase one of these, we destroyed it. We spent an entire day there!
We found out that there were 4 different types of tours and each cost $25-50 a piece. We really wanted to do them all, so we called them up and asked if there was a special price for all four. Lucky for us, it was only $100 to do them all. They laughed at us for asking if we could do them all in one day, but we insisted and they scheduled us in for an entire day of tours.
The first tour was the history tour. Here we learned that Fremantle prison was a convict prison from the early 1800s and became a maximum-security prison until 1991 when they had to shut down for sanitary reasons. I feel like I could go on all day about the history of this place, but I won’t bore you too much. I will tell you, though, that in Australia convicts are the first settlers…the ones who were sent over from England to Australia for committing various crimes…usually stealing things like bread and butter from their neighbors, etc. And the sanitary reasons are because there was never any running water or plumbing in the building. Until 1991!!!!! They were using the bathroom in a bucket that they shared with their cellmate!!!! Gross!?!?!?! So we learned about the place, from top to bottom and left to right. We heard all the stories and the typical prison scenarios. (Another Internet research if you’re that interested.)
The second tour was called Great Escapes and we learned about all the successful and unsuccessful attempts to escape. There was a guy who took off all of his clothes and tied them around the barbed wire fence to protect his body from cuts, but he was busted and his clothes are still there from 60 years ago. There was another guy who got over the walls and into his escape car. When he got to his friend’s house, he decided that he wanted to go to the pub since it had been four years since he’d had a drink. As you can imagine, he got wasted and ended up getting pulled over for public intoxication. The town police fingerprinted him since he had no ID and his address was Fremantle Prison. They called up the prison who searched and found what looked like a body in his bed (actually his clothes and shoes under the blankets) and said that it wasn’t him. The city police decided to keep him overnight since he was so drunk and would let him go in the morning. However, the next morning the prison realized that the guy hadn’t shown up for his duties and called them back. He was nearly free!
This tour also told us about the Catalpa, a ship that brought some Fenians to freedom in America. The successful escapee who rescued them was named O’Reilly. I really did hear the story, but will butcher any facts, so look it up if you want. Basically O’Reilly escaped from Fremantle and started a life in Boston. A few years later he came up with a big plan to rescue some of his friends. It’s pretty interesting stuff if you have a minute.
The third tour was of an underground tunnel system that was built by the prisoners when Fremantle was first inhabited. After about three years the people of Fremantle had wiped themselves out of fresh water. They found a table of rainwater just under the prison, so they forced the prisoners to dig 75-feet below ground and build a tunnel system to provide water for the entire town. The tunnels still exist today. We climbed a well 75 feet into the ground and, armed with headlamps and hard hats, made our way through the 1 kilometer tunnel grid all but crawling on all fours. A lot of the tunnel is still waist-deep water, so we got into 2-man boats and paddled our way through the rest of the place. It was so cool to think that we were that far underground in boats! It was pitch-black, too. At one point we were told to turn off our headlamps and enjoy the complete darkness. You couldn’t even see your hand directly in front of your face and for the most part, this is how the tunnels were built. It was such a cool thing to do and something you’d never think to do at all.
The fourth tour was at night and was the ghost tour. Apparently the prison is the third most haunted building in Australia. There are a million ghost stories coming out of the place and they have a whole tour geared towards it. Unfortunately we didn’t encounter any ghosts, but they do a good job of scaring you anyway. They even took us to the gallows where over 100 people were hanged. It was such a dingy smell and they guy said it was the smell of death. Creepy, huh? He had 100 other stories along the way, too. And I promise you there are orbs in our pictures. Not sure what to think about that….
In between the tours we had lunch and dinner and did some shopping for a few things we needed. We didn’t really spend 24 hours there, but close.
We rode our bikes back to the caravan park and are ready to crash out. Tomorrow is an early morning to Rottnest Island!
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