Our ship docked at noon in Fremantle with Perth up the Swan River about another hour by boat or half our by train ride away. The river is too shallow with a few low bridges making it impossible for the Ms Amsterdam to navigate to the city.
Perth was founded on June 12, 1829 by Captain James Stirling as a political center and has continued to serve as a seat of Government for Western Australia to the present day. Perth became known worldwide as the “City of Light”, when residents lit the houselights and streetlights as American astronaut John Glenn passed overhead while orbiting the earth in 1962. The city repeated this extraordinary tribute again in 1998 as Glenn passed overhead in the Space Shuttle. The first documented European sighting of the region was made by Dutch Captain Willem de Vlamingh in 1697 who determined that the area was inhospitable and unsuitable for the agriculture needed to sustain a settlement. Perth became the first full scale settlement by Europeans in the western third of Australia. The British colony was officially Western Australia in 1832, but was known informally as the Swan River Colony after the area’s major watercourse named after it native black swans. Captain Stirling selected the name Perth for the capital to honour Sir George Murray, Secretary of State for the Colonies, born in Perth, Scotland. In 1856, Queen Victoria announced the city status of Perth. Perth is one of the most isolated metropolitan areas in the world and is actually closer to East Timor, Singapore and Jakarta, Indonesia, than it is to Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
We were on our own for our stay here in Perth offering us much more freedom of time and movement to sites. Victoria Quay was about a half mile from the ship were we boarded the Captain Cook tour boat to travel the 75 minutes to Perth. Rain caused a bit of difficulty in getting great pictures but we have included a few. The house pictured here, all on one property, recently sold for 57 million australian dollars - it includes several guest houses, a caretakers house along with an indoor swimming pool and bowling alley.
Our last few pictures from Perth are from the pedestrian shopping district. This clock tower contains two knights which joust at the quarter hours - fun. Can you see the british/european influence here?
November 9th Fremantle, known affectionately as Freo, is not a very big city, but it certainly has its own character, distinct from Perth. In a drive to accelerate growth, the British government sent juvenile offenders to the colony at first, and then in 1849, ignoring local objection, declared the port a penal settlement. Nine thousand prisoners were sent during the next decade - and they built most of the contemporary Fremantle’s attractive buildings. A gold rush at the end of the century brought brief growth and wealth, but by 1900, the minerals began to run out and the economy stalled. Fortunately, the Victorian buildings survived.
The Fremantle Prison (1831) and other sites from our short morning in Fremantle, all aboard time 11:30am - we clocked in at 11:22.
Tip or Comment of the Day. Wherever you are whatever you do, do it like you may never return to do it or see it again. We only had a few hours here in Fremantle this morning and we could have opted to stay on the ship but getting out and enjoying this town was a wonderful surprise, great free transportation, great pedestrian zones, Jan found this unusual Emu shop with items exclusive to this store (not sold in other tourist shops) and picked up a few signed prints. You just never know what your going to find until you start looking and then something actually finds you. I went around a corner and this huge submarine was right there - a great morning.
Ah... three days at sea.... time to relax. Last thing for today. Upon returning to our stateroom last night we had an invitation in our ship mail. The Captain and his partner Brooke, have invited us to join them at the Captain’s table on November 11, 2011, a formal night. Pretty cool... not sure what to expect, we may have another blog posting on the 12th, stayed tuned.
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