Having had eight weeks of unbroken hot dry weather, rain everyday has come as somewhat of a surprise. We had our first rain at Monkey Mia and since then there has been rain everyday, and when we were at Greenough, we thought the wind was going to blow the van roof off. Luckily the weather has not been terribly wet and if it were, most Australians would cheer because of the drought in the South. When it does rain however, it does it with monsoon enthusiasm, not a soft English drizzle. If this unseasonal rain intensity continues, we may have to change our plans slightly since some walking was planned post Adelaide, and this type of rain is not really rain for walking in.
It is of course winter in Australia and therefore we have no right to complain but it has meant that long trousers, socks and shoes have made a reappearance and our shorts etc have been put away, hopefully only until we start heading north again in a few weeks time.
On the way down south we stopped off at Cervantes to see the Pinnacles. These are thousands of limestone pillars ranging in size from small to
many metres tall which were discovered when the wind blew away the
sand protecting them. The resultant National Park is very well laid out and
is well visited. One can only be surprised that nature has created such a wonder and pleased that one can wander around it at will (although the behaviour of some of the tourists made us wonder how long that would continue) and you leave with a feel that one had been somewhere quite unique.
Fremantle is a separate city to Perth although they have merged into one suburban sprawl. Being so far from anywhere else, it has its own character and despite a somewhat fraught drive into and through the town (so much traffic, lots of people, traffic lights even) we can see that the town has a unique character which we are determined to explore.
Much of the original architecture remains in the city
Fremantle has converted its old jail (only closed in 1991) into a tourist attraction, such a recent closure means that what you now see is what was endured by the prison population until recently.
A cell as was in 1860
Wing Landing
The actual gallows from which 44 prisoners departed.
Fremantle also has a very good Shipwreck museum which not only details many of the ship wrecks that lie along the west coast but also tells the story of how the west and north coasts of Australia were discovered and also explains early theories of its existence, including the Roman one that the earth was round and therefore something had to exist down here in order to balance the weight of the land at the top of the earth.
On the way here the van developed its first fault with a warning light appearing. Despite believing (thanks to Dedman Garages) that it was simply an advisory that the cam belt needed changing, it was good to hear from the van hire people than the van was not going to die within a few miles.
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