Loving this breakfast buffet. I better enjoy it, as I am sure this is not going to be at every hotel I go to. There were more people here this morning than yesterday. I won’t need lunch.
I got very lost on the road this morning. The bloody GPS didn’t work and I didn’t have a good map (remember I didn’t take the phone book they tried to give me). The only reason I ended up at my destination is due to my directional abilities and luck (and the local maps of Swan Valley).
My destination was Caversham Wildlife Park, located in Whiteman Park. There were quite a few people there -- a busload of tourists and various families with their children still out of school on holidays. As I am not a huge fan of zoos, I just wanted to see what they had to offer -- small numbers of animals in cages.
The animals were beautiful, but it was much more exciting to “hunt” down a cassowary vs seeing one in a cage. Also the same with koalas, stopping your car on the side of the road vs seeing one in a cage and getting to touch it’s back. I did see a beautiful black swan. There were some areas of this park that stunk to the high heavens --- flying foxes are not a sweet smelling animals.
After I petted a kangaroo, and observed all the pooh on the ground, I traveled on. Made my way to the Perth airport -- which is not marked properly for return of rental vehicles. I ended up on the butt end of no where to take back my GPS. They were nice about it and just credited my account. I hope I can find my way around without one. Aussies do not get good grades for signage -- their street signs are very unobtrusive if they exist at all.
I found my way to Fremantle all on my own. They have a prison here that was decommissioned in the early 90’s and had a bad riot in the 80’s. My first tour guide with a big group was Andrew. He was a hoot but a little hard to understand. He took us around on the “Doing Time” tour. There was a Kiwi Corrections Officer on the tour with us. (He said per capita that there are more child molesters in New Zealand than any other country -- spooky - don’t take kids to NZ.)
Andrew took us around all the male inmate facilities -- in the beginning it was a dormitory for the prisoners to just have a place to stay as they relocated here. Then it changed to a prison facility. Some of the cells had paintings - for therapeutic measures (how nuts could they have been?). They had corporal punishment here where they used to flog people. Number 6 and 16 were not liked here because they symbolized the hangman's noose.
Paul, who we correctly guessed was a former corrections officer here, was our next tour guide. Our group was smaller and he was extremely informative -- the “Great Escapes Tour” -- these guards were taught in an escape to shoot to maim, what’s up with that? We got to see the printing workshop, tailor and cobbler schools too. They gave them professions. He sent us up to the guard's lonely lookout tower. Additionally we saw the women’s side of the prison (much nicer than the men’s side) and death row (they abolished capital punishment here in the 80’s).
There was a nice couple from Adelaide on the tour with me, who took the train from Adelaide to Perth (might have been better than my defective plane). Also a couple of locals and a nice man from Cognac, France. It made for interesting questions.
There were a few places in the prison, you just got cold shivers at -- it must be haunted and I am glad we got out before dark. It was fascinating to see. I can’t believe such an old facility was used into the 90’s. You could definitely feel the bad energy.
After battling rush hour traffic, I made it back to my room and to a local grocery store. Got some supplies for my road trip and turned in early. I know there were parties going everywhere for the royal wedding and I know my friends all over the world were watching (and my Kiwi, Aussie, Brit friends were probably at the parties), but I did not. I watched a George Clooney movie instead :)
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