Friday 16 Oct 2026. Adelaide to Perth / Kingsley
We were at the airport and in the Qantas Lounge by around 10:45am, relaxing for our 11:50am flight.
We boarded around 11:25am and were in the air on time! We were seated in the same row, but by choice Deb had a window seat (seat A) and I had an aisle seat (D). The flight was full.
We landed in Perth after an uneventful flight, around 12:45pm Perth time. As usual for Perth, our luggage took along time to come out, but at least it came out. We picked up our hire car, and were on the road by 1:35pm.
It was an easy drive and we were at our comfortable airbnb by 2:10pm. We took time to unpack, buy groceries and settle in before we headed over to see P and his boys. (A had a weeks break up in Bali with friends, so we missed her). We got a great welcome from H & J, and P. It was so good to see them all. The boys had grown a lot since we last saw them. We had great fun playing with the boys and catching up with P.
P made chicken rice for dinner and we all really enjoyed it. We left around 7 so P could settle the boys and get them to bed.
Saturday 17 Oct Kingsley / Padbury
We started our day by joining P , H & J at a bike track in a park in Padbury. H & J had a great time riding around the up and down track. H was so confident on his bike, and measured in how he rode,he had a great time. J on the other hand, on his “push” bike was out there all guns blazing having so much fun.
When we left we went to the shop and got some lunch for everyone, I dropped Deb back at the airbnb, and then went to P’s to watch the Bledisloe Cup with him (Australia got thumped by NZ, again) and then had time with H & J. They both had lots of fun showing me all their moves on the trampoline and then we played with their toys inside. They really do love showing us things. I left P to wrangle the kids and went back to be with Deb.
We had a walk through the bush park, Shepherds Bush, opposite our airbnb. There were some interesting plants, lots of grass trees (non p-c named “blackboys”) in the park, some that looked very old. One of them had a bee hive in its trunk, near the ground.
Sunday 19 Oct 2026 Kingsley / Currambine / Padbury
We met P, H & J at a school in Currambine where J does “Ready, Set, Go”. It’s a fun sports introduction program for kids. Over the term J will be introduced to the basics of 4 or 5 different sports. Today was Soccer (or football if you prefer). He had a great time, he has so much fun, he listened to the ”coaches” and did what they said, all at full steam with lots of laughter.
From there we went back to our airbnb, H had a birthday party to go to. We went back over to see them all mid afternoon. We sat, played, talked and played some more. Later in the afternoon both boys were showing signs of being very tired (they got very quiet and dozy), so we left P so he could feed them and get them off to bed. We had a good time with them all. Life seems very good for them.
Monday 19 October 2026 Kingsley / Darch
We had a very slow morning before heading out for lunch at the Farm Cafe at Landsdale Farm, followed by a bit of Ingress. The farm was similar to one we went to with P and his family on our last trip here. Lots of baby farm animals and caged birds. We had lunch at the cafe, Deb enjoyed hers and mine was ok, would have been better heated all the way through.
We went back to our airbnb and enjoy a quiet afternoon together.
Tuesday 20 October 2026 Kingsley to Fremantle
We had a slow sort of start to our day. We packed our things, relaxed and were on the road by about 10:45am.
We took the scenic route to Fremantle, down along the coast. It’s a mostly picturesque way to go.
We had a short stop at City Beach. It was a quiet morning at the beach, a few sunbathers, people walking their dogs, cafes doing their thing and some life guards training out in the water. Very relaxing walking around the area and looking out to Rottnest Island and all the commercial ships out to sea.
We checked into our hotel, The Garde, at around 1pm, to our joy our room was ready. I then took the car back to the rental depot and got an Uber back to the hotel. Our hotel is directly across the road from Fremantle Oval and the Fremantle Markets, a great location.
After we unpacked and settled in, we went for a walk around our area. We started at Fremantle Oval, the gates were open so we walked in and had a look around. It’s home to the WAFL Fremantle team, the Bulldogs. Its an aging historic looking ground, whose old grandstands need some desperate love, splinters are an ominous threat from the old timber benches. We enjoyed taking time to soak it up.
Next we walked west past the Markets, they open Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We plan to visit them early Friday afternoon before we head out to board our boat. We continued down to an old church, it was closed and then walked along a street lined with buildings of an era long past. Most were well looked after and sympathetically restored. It was like walking back into the late 1800’s early 1900’s. So much history oozing from the buildings. Fremantle looks to be undergoing a revival of its history, a slow expensive restoration honouring its past. We found a few quirky little shops and made our way up to the old railway station. We continued walking in what turned out to be a lap around central Fremantle. We both enjoyed the walk and the prospect of further explorations.
We got back to our hotel, refreshed a bit and went down for a drink. It was relaxing and the barman was friendly and amusing. After our drink we went for dinner at an Asian restaurant attached to our hotel. The food could have been great, but we were left flat, everything was very rushed – 5 shared plates – gone in under 45 mins!
We returned to the hotel and put our feet up.
Wednesday 21 Oct 2026. Fremantle.
We are getting the hang of these slow starts to our days, we were down for breakfast a bit after 9am. Breakfast was good.
We set out to explore some more. First stop was Fremantle Oval, the day was a bit overcast so we were hoping for better photos. Similar to yesterday there were a group of “shouty” people there, calling out to the world, and anyone who would listen, all the things wrong in their space. It’s a sight we seem to be seeing more often these days, such sadness.
From there we headed into the town centre and found the Tourist Information Centre where we picked up a map and got some local tips on things to see. The weather has been a bit cooler than we expected, so we called into Kathmandu and got Deb a warm “cardi”. Then on we went, down High St towards the Esplanade.
High St, and some of its cross streets, are magnificent. It’s lined with low rise old world buildings, they take you back 100 to 150 years ago. Almost all of them have been faithfully restored, well at least their facades have, and the picture and feel they create is incredible. This area of Fremantle is easy to walk around and its history is everywhere and living.
At the end of High St we came to the Round House, a former gaol, police lock-up, Water Police accommodation and finally a storage facility. Everyday, when the cannon master is available, the cannon is fired at 1pm, an historical tradition by which the locals used to set their time pieces. There were displays of stocks that were used as punishment back in the late 1800’s, and many displays giving an historical record of the Round House.
Under the Round House Is a tunnel that was carved out of the rock in 1837/1838 to facilitate the movement of products from the then thriving whaling industry. The tunnel was originally 3.6m high and 64m long, but now only stretches to 46m.
We walked from there along the foreshore past Bathers Bay, had a look at the art in the Kidogo Arthouse, past some interesting sculptures, including bikini clad “Bella” proudly proclaiming “The freedom to be.”, and on finally to the statue of Bon Scott, a tribute to the famous lead singer of AC/DC. Besides the usual tourist groups that inevitably visit such statues was a group the included an old school American rocker. who is currently touring Australia, John Brannon of the “Negative Approach” ( he just looked the part – thanks google lens for identifying who he was).
We had lunch, fish and chips, by the marina seemingly surrounded by chip hungry seagulls. It was a great place to sit and take in the atmosphere of the marina. After lunch we took a slow stroll back through the streets of Fremantle, some are much better than others, (sadly there are many homeless people here) and made our way back to the main square area and the statue of John Curtin.
We eventually made it back to our hotel and enjoyed relaxing for the rest of the afternoon.
Thursday 22 Oct 2026. Fremantle.
Another slow sort of start to our day.
After breakfast we walked over the road and up a slight incline to the old Fremantle Prison. We did the 10:30am Behind Bars Tour. It was really interesting. The gaol was originally built to house convicts sent out from England in the early 1850’s. It was designed to house around 1000 inmates The convicts were used to build it. It was continuously used as a place of incarceration from 1852 to 1991. It finished use as a place to “house” convicts in 1886 and from then on was a prison. In its days as a Convict prison it held prisoners from 15 years old and up, as a Colonial Gaol the youngest age of a prisoner was 8 years old (he was charged with theft). As a Colonial and eventually State Gaol it was a maximum security prison, and housed the states worst criminals. Conditions were harsh, with prisoners confined to their solitary cells for 12 to 14hrs a day.
The tour started in the induction room, where all prisoners started their time. Stripped, searched, washed and clothed. All their worldly goods were left at the front door, including their names. From this point forward in their stay they were known only by their prison number. The tour continued through the shower room and then walked through the prison kitchen, the place that fed every prisoner. The “lucky” prisoners had their cells close to the kitchen, their food may have been warm, those at the extreme end of the prison got cold food. Onward like them, we were then taken to the cell blocks and their cells, small stark rooms with no comforts other than a hard bed and a toilet bucket. The cell blocks were reminiscent of Alcatraz, a narrow building with cells along either wall extending up 3 floors, very depressing. Attached to each cell block was a yard, where the prisoners were let out for about 4 hours a day, mostly unsupervised – 1 warder watched over them. There were two notable riots at the prison in “modern” times, one in 1968 and another 1988, both were about the conditions within the prison, the riot of 1988 was the worst. The tour continued to the hangman’s room. In the time the gaol was operated by the state 43 men and 1 woman were executed by hanging within the Gaol. The last hanging was in 1964. The gallows room was interesting to see and the explanation of the execution process was clinical, it seemed no one taking part in the process wanted it to take a moment longer than absolutely necessary. There were many escape attempts, with 44 in the 1900’s, some of them were ingenious and took a long time to plan and implement. We were told of a funny escape attempt by a 1 legged prisoner nick named Peg Leg, amusing but desperately sad.
We both really enjoyed the tour.
We went back to our room for a bit then went out and had some lunch and played a bit of Ingress from our hotel down to the Esplanade and back. It was a fun day.
Back at our hotel we did a bit of washing, we check out tomorrow to start our cruise and want to start that leg of the holiday with clean clothes. We had pizza for dinner at the Old Courthouse pub and enjoyed the live music.
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