Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Friends and Fun Times in Freo

Fremantle is a gorgeous town. There are sculptures all over the place and a wonderful quayside area. We were awaiting delivery of a part which, thanks to a train derailment was taking rather a TOLL. (ha ha ha.. see what I did there??!)

We had the WORST parking experience ever. We did the usual checks over the phone (“Can you fit a 40ft coach with a 6m trailer – we are 19m in total?”) and Dunc even did his usual walk through before we even drove into the joint. But there was one little teeny tiny retaining wall that made life hell. After a good 45 minutes of reversing and forwarding, MANY swear words from Dunc and lots of helpful good thoughts from the neighbor, the maintenance man was called to remove one paltry little brick. He wasn’t too keen on the idea, and got Dunc and Bertha to dance back and forth a few more times. He very quickly realised it wasn’t going to work and happily kicked the brick loose. Yet again we had maintenance men swearing at the office staff for putting us in an unsuitable site. We really should ask to speak to the maintenance men in future…


Not long after we were finally settled, the children had their day made when a caravan pulled up next door with the family from Margaret River on board! And about an hour later, the OTHER family from Margaret River (the ones we had only just seen in Karrinyup) arrived as well! They were all going to Rottnest Island together, and it meant the kids could all play for a few days – yippee! The weather was very second-rate and I didn’t want to spend a fortune going to Rottnest Island in the rain, but in the end their day was mostly okay. We probably should have gone afterall – doh!

We spent our time wandering Freo and eating out at Little Creatures (yummy) and Cicerellos (very disappointing – the children’s fish and chips had NZ fish!? Really?! In a town renowned for fishing?) and checking out the sights. We went to:
The Docks where they have a lovely sculpture to celebrate the original fishermen
The Fremantle Prison, which was operational until 1991. VERY interesting!
The Shipwreck Gallery, where we learnt all about the Batavia
The Maritime Musuem, where we saw the Australia II and had a tour in a submarine











Our new inverter arrived only one day later than we thought, though Dunc DID have to drive to the other side of Perth to collect it. He combined that with a catch-up lunch with Jerry on his way to the airport, so it all worked out rather perfectly in the end. I shall get Dunc to do a ‘guest post’ about the inverter, but safe-to-say he installed it in one day and has been a very happy chappy ever since.

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