50. Fremantle and Perth

Deciding to make some ground we dropped our gnome off at Gnomesville and drove along the coast road through Mandurah to Fremantle, stopping only at Preston Beach for another round of pikelets.

Arrived at Fremantle Village Caravan Park and set up.  Puddy is now in hiding…again.

Our friends, Ash and Jacinta, also checked in right behind us.  We went for a walk around the park and ended up going down to the camp kitchen with everyone for a chat.

Friday we got up early and got organised ready for a trip to the city.  We caught the bus to the train station and then the train in. Rod was most excited by the train ride as it passed along all the shipping docks and there were thousands of cars and CATS waiting on the docks.  An amazing sight.  Lots of big ships and tugs all over. 

We got to the city and had no idea where to go, so we followed the crowd.  Grabbed some food from Woolies for morning tea, sat in the mall having a snack and watching the people go by. Only for a brief moment.

Deciding to find the Perth Mint we headed off, only to remember the reason for coming into the city – to get our mail. So we detoured to find the post office and then headed off again.  Thinking it might be a fun idea to catch the free bus circuit, we boarded the red cat to embark on our hour long trip. The kids were well and truly over it by the time we got there. Then to find out the mint was nothing like the one in Canberra, it was a place they made collectors coins. Grr. So we left.

Walked back to town and grabbed some lunch and headed off to Kings Park.  There we got some great views of the city and the water, the boys wrestled on the green grass and we headed off again for the bus stop back to town. Grabbing some groceries before we boarded the train back to Fremantle.

Why do we have to still do reality stuff when on holidays???

Made our way over to north east Perth to pick up brake parts. Found it very easy, good city to manoeuvre around. Returned to the BCF we saw to look, again, at rods for Mitchell.  Oh what a hassle getting in and out of the place.  We went from there to buy oil and then Tackle World.  Finally we worked out that Mitchell’s rod is actually quite good and we just bought, well he is paying, bought some braid.  I got some for mine too.

With half the day shot and we still hadn’t managed to do the bus and walk around Fremantle we returned to the van, ate and went again; pushing ourselves as we were tired.  Rhys cracked a narna so we left him with the van and took Mitchell downtown.

We walked along Fremantle main strip up and back, saw the markets and shared a double scoop gelato for $6.10.  Yes, I know that is a lot of money and it broke my heart to spend it, but man it was divine! Snickers and Mango…yummy.

We opted to pay for the bus ride home and got back to the van.  In the time it took me to get from the front gate to our van, ‘cause of talking, Rod had driven to the bottle shop and returned and had started lining up the rods. 

I struggled to cook dinner, but it was yummy, mango chicken and fried rice.  The boys went off for the afternoon and played with Adelle, Juliet and Livinia and made donuts. 

PHOTOS: Fremantle and Perth