Fremantle is a very pleasant city, only a 30 minutes drive from Perth. It is definitely worth a visit.

We walked along the beach in South-Fremantle, close to our caravan park. And visited the WA Shipwreck Galleries. This museum has a tremendous collection of items on display related to the Dutch discovery of Western Australia (and the VOC-ships that sank near the coast).

The major tourist attractionin in Fremantle is the former prison. It is on the Unesco World Heritage List and that is fully justifiable. More importantly, the prison has a fascinating history which starts in 1855 when the first convicts from the UK arrived. The prison closed in 1991. It was an enormous facility, holding more than 1.200 inmates at any point in time. Today it is open for tourists. And I must admit that the tour, we joined the 'Doing Time'-tour, is really great. Our guide, Matthew, started the tour with an explanation of the prisoner intake process. We were in the same room in which the process actually took place. To be precise, we were sitting on the same bench as the newly arrived prisoners did. The rest of the tour has the same idea. As much as possible visitors are shown how prison life was like. The two places that impressed me most were the cell blocks and the gallows. The cell blocks are very similar to the ones depicted in 'The Shawshank Redemption', one of my favourite movies. The gallows are scary and unpleasant. I felt uncomfortable taking pictures of the wooden frame from which a condemned person was executed by hanging. And I'm sure I wasn't the only one.