Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
name of King George IV'. Like Perth, the settlement made little progress until convict la-
bour was used. Convicts constructed most of the town's earliest buildings; some of them,
such as the Round House, Fremantle Prison and Fremantle Arts Centre, are now among
the oldest in WA.
As a port, Fremantle wasn't up to much until the engineer CY O'Connor created an ar-
tificial harbour in the 1890s, destroying the Wadjuks' river crossing in the process. This
caused such disruption to their traditional patterns of life that it's said that a curse was
placed on O'Connor; some took his later suicide at Fremantle as evidence of its effective-
ness.
The port blossomed during the gold rush and many of its distinctive buildings date from
this period. Economic stagnation in the 1960s and 1970s spared the streetscape from the
worst ravages of modernisation. It wasn't until 1987, when Fremantle hosted the Amer-
ica's Cup, that it transformed itself from a sleepy port town into today's vibrant, artsy city.
The cup was lost that year, but the legacy of a redeveloped waterfront remains. In 1995
the Fremantle Dockers played their first game, quickly developing one of the most fanat-
ical fan bases in the AFL, boosted in 2010 and 2012 by a semifinals berth. We reckon it's
only a matter of time before they go all the way.
1
Sights
Fremantle Prison
( 08-9336 9200;
www.fremantleprison.com.au
; 1 The Terrace; torchlight tours $25/21; 9am-5.30pm)
With
its foreboding 5m-high walls enclosing a nearly 6-hectare site, the old convict-era prison
still dominates present-day Fremantle, with its tales of adventure and hardship living on in
the city's imagination. In 2010 its cultural status was recognised, along with that of 10
other penal buildings, as part of the Australian Convict Sites entry on the Unesco World
Heritage list.
HISTORIC BUILDING
