NB. This post has turned into a bit of an indulgence on my part so please skip a deep read if you wish.
After our interesting morning in the WA Maritime Museum, we set off in brighter sunshine to find some lunch and a stroll through the historic city of Freemantle and a visit to its famous Market Halls. Best intentions were frustrated by another lengthy search for a place to park closer to the Markets. We ended up on the 7th Floor of a multistorey car park and once again played the stealth game of pouncing on the first space to become available. Fortunately, the lift was working and we were soon taking a walk along one of the main streets heaving with visitors – it being the school holidays, in search of lunch.
The Market Halls were equally busy but it made hard work of viewing the many artisan stalls. I made a valiant attempt to buy some artistic fridge magnets but the stall holder was nowhere to be seen so no sale!
After braving the crowds for an hour or so we decided to head back to Mandurah.
No photos but for the record here is a description of this historic city.
The original inhabitants of the land on which the city is built were the Whadjuk Noongar people, who called the area Walyalup the place of the Waylie or brush-tailed bettong. A small, critically endangered mammal native to forests and shrubland of Australia.
The first Europeans to visit the site of modern-day Fremantle were Dutch explorers captained by Willem de Vlamingh, in 1697. The area was considered as a site for possible British settlement in 1827, when Captain James Stirling - he of HMAS Stirling on Garden Island, explored the coastal areas near the Swan River. As a result of Stirling's favourable report, Captain Charles Fremantle was instructed to sail to the west coast of Australia to establish a settlement there. It was on 2 May 1829, that Fremantle hoisted the Union Flag in a bay near what is now known as Arthur Head and at the mouth of the Swan River.
In the 1850s, when the first convicts arrived I the Swan River Colony, the need arose for a large-scale prison. Freemantle Prison was built by the first convicts in 1855. It was used as a maximum-security prison until 1991. Today visitors can tour the cells, chapel and gallows room last used in 1964.
During the Second World War, Fremantle was the home of the largest base for Allied submarines in the Southern Hemisphere. Today the RAN submarines are based at HMAS Stirling on Garden Island.
In 1897 Fremantle Harbour was deepened, a limestone bar and sand shoals across the entrance to the Swan River were removed making Fremantle a serviceable port for commercial shipping. This occurred at the height of the late 19th-century Western Australian gold rush, transforming Fremantle into a capital of trade and gateway for thousands of gold miners to the inland boom towns of Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie (Visited on the Indian Pacific so look out for a post) and Southern Cross.
After Australia won the 1983 America's Cup yacht race, Fremantle hosted Australia's defence of the trophy in 1987.
The Fremantle Inner Harbour is at the mouth of the Swan River, on the edge of the Indian Ocean and a gateway to Western Australia. This was a place of plentiful resources where people met for thousands of years as well as a place of spiritual meaning where ancestors walked, camped, hunted and fished, naming the features they saw.
Major imports through the port in the early years of its history were manufactured goods, food products and some raw materials such as coal. Fisheries products, sandalwood and other timbers, wool, gold and later wheat were the major exports. Today, East and Southeast Asia, including Japan, are the major trading regions for Fremantle. The major exports by commodity are grain (wheat, malt, lupins, canola, oats and barley), alumina, petroleum and bauxite. Major imports are petroleum, fertilisers, caustic soda, cement clinker and sulphur. Deep water facilities are available in the Outer Harbour, 22 kilometres south at Kwinana and were first developed in 1955 to service the Kwinana industrial area, which expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 70s. Today the port of Pilbara further north from Perth is the world's largest bulk export port. The ports of Dampier and Port Hedland are responsible for approximately 77 per cent of Australia's, and 42 per cent of the world's, iron ore trade.
Fremantle, however, remains one of Australia's most important cruise ship ports.
Fremantle Markets opened in 1897. he grand old Victorian building is one of only two surviving municipal market buildings in Western Australia, and one of the few in Australia that continues to be used for its original purpose. You can learn more by visiting: https://www.fremantlemarkets.com.au/history
