Fremantle

Driving to Fremantle during morning peak hour was a breeze. We successfully navigated our way through the Fremantle city to the break wall on the Southern harbour entrance to see that this city was all about commercial shipping and associated port operations. Fremantle is where the Swan River meets the sea - ships can't steam up the Swan River to Perth, so all shipping operations are located at Fremantle.

Unfortunately Patrick's huge container terminal was not operating, they are either on strike or have a lack of ships. It was very impressive to see the thousands upon thousands of containers piled up in their huge yard.

The wind was up and the waves were spraying over the break wall where we drove.

Our main aim for the day was to visit the Maritime Museum and we weren't disappointed. The museum is excellent and amongst many other vessels houses the famous Australia II which took the America's Cup away from the Yanks after more than 100 years. It was skippered to victory in 1983 by John Bertrand and owned by Alan Bond.

The highlight of our museum visit was a guided tour through HMAS Ovens, an Oberon class submarine, located in a dry dock next to the museum building.

A submarine is a great thing for people like me who love dials and knobs and I mean lots and lots of dials and knobs.

I can assure you as a submariner it was advantageous to be vertically challenged. I bumped my head numerous times and I shudder at the though of having to sleep in those small bunks. The lack of windows makes submarines a pretty dark and dim place where day looks like night. With a total of 64 sailors living in such close quarters one needs to be very tolerant.

Some interesting technical facts: the batteries can deliver 7400 Amps and are charged by two 16 cylinder diesel generators which can deliver well over 3000 Amps each.

The museum was also showing a temporary photo exhibition titled "Line of Sight" about creatures of the Kimberley.

Our travels then took us back into Perth city to the Ferry Terminal where Mother and daughter climbed the Swan Bell Tower to enjoy the view whilst the remainder of the team studied the mechanism of the clock and got a bit of insight into Bell ringing - a rather complex subject.

A quick trip to the shopping centre at Belmont for some more food shopping and a short stop at Bunnings brought us back to our caravan and also brought our Perth stay to an end. Just as well, after a couple of days in Perth I have to say it's just another city with suburbs that look just like the 'burbs in Melbourne or Sydney. A city is a city is a city and the best view of a city is in the rear vision mirror when you're leaving!

One thing I must say though, rather than showing the names of suburbs when entering a Freeway/Highway the signs here indicate the direction (e.g. North) which makes navigating a lot easier for us who don't know where the different suburbs are.