Prison life…um, No thanks!

Posted on February 18, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Irony Anyone?, Stupidity and randomness |

Yesterday, Mum, Brian, Jamie and I decided to go to Fremantle for the afternoon. First we spent a little time watching this guy on the street.
He was doing some kind of Vaudeville type show and had the crowd laughing and clapping. In this photo, he is actually standing on a couple of old suitcases piled one on top of the other. Eventually he juggles stuff and jumps off… grand finale!

From there we moved on to explore the Fremantle Markets They are located in an old warehouse and cover a lot of ground. I’m sure we spent over an hour just browsing around and that is with skipping a lot of places and not really LOOKING for anything in particular. I imagine, if we hadn’t had the boys with us, Mum and I could have spent the whole afternoon in there… easily.

By this time we were all feeling a bit peckish, so we walked along the Coffee Strip (South Terrace) looking for a place to stop and eat. The smells wafting out of Madonna’s Restaurant was too tempting to pass by, so we sat at an outside table and enjoyed lunch while watching the foot and car traffic go by.

After our lunch we headed off towards the harbour. This is what Fremantle is famous for and is a little like Montreal’s old port. Here’s Mum sitting on a lobster crate/statue thingy. We thought this might amuse Barrie as he is a lobster fishing enthusiast from Prince Edward Island.

From there we made our way back inland to the famous Fremantle Prison where we took the “Doing Time” tour. It takes about an hour and 15 minutes and it extremely interesting…and scary! It’s hard to believe that this prison was still in operation as little as 15 years ago! Out tour leader, Emanuel (who reminded both Mum and I of Robert DeNiro) was well informed and very interesting.

After buying our tickets, we proceeded into the Prison itself

The photo below and to the left shows the “Now and Then” aspect of Prison security. The “Now” part being the razor wire on the right and the “Then” portion being the broken glass bottles cemented into the top of the walls. I don’t think I’d venture climbing over those on hands and knees!

To the right, a prison cell. Home to all 600 or so inmates. This was a standard cell up until the 1960’s when the cells were made bigger by knocking down the dividing wall between two rooms. It measured 1.2 x 2.1 metres and was furnished only with a hammock, a stool, a bucket and a fold down table. Talk about tight living quarter! Even the rooms twice the sized looks so small.

If you were really naughty, you might get solitary confinement. The SC block worked as follows. A first infraction would get you a cell near the front of the block with a decent amount of light and space (though still tiny). Further infractions would get you a cell further down the block until you’d reached the last cell (left) which was virtually light-less and about half the size of the first cell in the block.

And then, of course, there was death row. The last person to be hanged here died about 22 and 1/2 years ago. THINK ABOUT THIS! Not that long ago at all! They were walked up here and blindfolded at the door. The noose was slipped around their neck and a lever dropped the floor out from under them. The chair was for those with watery legs. Even that wouldn’t halt the hanging.

All in all, it was fascinating and a definite prod to obey the law at all costs! LOL . The Prison closed in 1991 but remains open to the public with several great tours. There is the tour we did “Doing Time” but there are several others as well. There is also the “Great Escape“, “Torchlight” (which I’ve heard scares the wits out of you!) and “Tunnels” tours (not for the claustrophobic!) If you check out the Fremantle Prison website, you can take a virtual tour as well.

Have fun! And be GOOD!

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