Trip to Freo

A few weeks back my sister Jo, niece Darcie and I took a little trip into Freo to have lunch for Jo's birthday. I took a few pics and thought I'd post a couple on here just for the sake of doing a post really.

Now I like Freo. I don't spend a lot of time there mainly because the parking is crap and it's not exactly close to where I live (although it's much closer now than to where I used to live). But it has a certain charm about it, a lot of the buildings are the original ones from the settlement, being a port city it has a hustle and bustle about it and there are heaps of little back alleys to explore.

We had lunch at Cicerellos, one of the more famous fish and chip joints in Perth. They're pretty good there although you pay for their fame but it's always worth it when in Freo. They have tables outside on the jetty and so we sat outside to eat although Darcie was a bit freaked out being so close to the water's edge.
After lunch we decided to head over to the Round House and have a looksie. Smerk posted a few pics of the Round House a while back on her blog but I can't find them to link to at the mo so you'll just have to make do with the photos I've taken from the inside and underneath and check out the Wiki link.

Under the Round House is a tunnel that is used now as a mini museum. There's several enclosures that depict various colonial scenes plus displays about how the tunnels were incorporated during war time.

This is the big flag pole that stands at the top of Arthur Head as seen from below (I got very excited learning the name of this hill and made several references to Arthur's Seat much to the annoyance of Jo). When a ship is coming into Port a welcome flag is raised to acknowledge it's arrival, apparently Freo is one of the few remaining Ports in the world who continue with this tradition.



All it really needs is a pirate flag!


There are some stocks inside the Round House and the guide there was going to unlock them to let us have our photo taken. Unfortunately she's misplaced the keys and so Darcie and I settled for just putting our hands through. I guess we're lucky that the guide didn't lose the keys after she'd locked us in!

After we left the Round House we meandered down some little back streets and made our way over to the new Maritime Museum. We were going to go and have a look but didn't really want to spend a heap to get into the museum and then have to pay for the submarine tour as well when we knew Darce would chicken out and we'd be left penniless for no reason. Darce tried to convince us she'd be ok but when we pointed out the submarine (it's at the back of the museum) she realised how small and cramped it would be and admitted she would have freaked.
So we caught the bus up to the prison with the intent to take a tour and show Darce the first prison that Poppy worked in (Dad was a Prison Officer for many, many years working all over the state up until he retired several years back). However when we got there we discovered we'd just missed the last tour and would have to wait an hour and a half till the next one. By that point we were tired and sunburnt and decided to head home.

On the walk back to the car we passed a church near the markets and I really liked this sign out the front. I'm not a religious person but if I was I'd love to attend a church with a sense of humour.

Also I'd been meaning to get a photo of this church for quite some time but have never had a chance. Sorry it's a bit blurry - it was taken from the car while driving past. If you can't read the name of the church on the sign it says 'The Immaculate Conception Parish'.

Freo is a must do place for when Boo and Mouse come to visit in October. It might not be as ancient as their city but it's the oldest man made place we've got here and I'd like to show it off.