Skip to main content

Trains, Perth and Fremantle.

Road Trip Day 24: 15th June 2007

The one thing I wanted to do whilst visiting Perth was spend a day on my own, riding the train to visit the Perth CBD and Fremantle. Today was that day.

When I head out on my own I don't really do much except walk and observe. I enjoy walking and I like to get out and see how places have changed from when I was there last.

My morning started with a fairly long walk to the train station. On the way I passed through , what I imagine, is one of the largest Westfield Shopping Malls in the country. It's nearly big enough to have its own postcode. The Westfield was built before I left Perth. Apart from looking a little more lived in, it looked pretty much the same. Maybe a different shop here and there but that's about all.

I was a little worried that the trains ticketing system might be all different and I'd have to spend some time relearning it, however the basic system was unchanged. Put your money in a machine on the platform to buy your ticket. There is a new system called 'Smart Cards' which I guess are prepaid, multi trip tickets. On every station there is a reminder for you to 'tag on' and 'tag off' if you have one of these and gates have been built with the machines to do this placed as conveniently as possible.

Checking of tickets has become much tighter too. With gates having been installed across all exits at major stations so that guards can ensure you're not trying to fare evade. There's still a few ways you can get through the cracks. Traveling in off peak times they tend not to watch the exits and you can walk straight through unchecked.

My train arrived in the Perth CBD around 11am and I spent about an hour walking around. I was going to climb the Bell Tower on the foreshore of the Swan river but it was $10 to get in. I'd seen the museum inside the tower and the view from the top on an earlier trip so $10 for a quick look seemed a tad expensive.

Not a lot has changed in Perth. One very large building that used to be the home of the Myer shopping centre had been leveled to make way for Perth's new below ground railway station however it was early stages so really all you could see was the gap where the building used to be.

I reboarded the train and headed for the port city of Fremantle, a place I one day may choose to live should the opportunity arise. I like Fremantle because it is a very historical city with a great number of heritage buildings, plus it is by the beach. Whilst I'm not much of a swimmer I do like living right next to the coast where the sea disappears to the horizon. It has a feeling of possibility and opportunity about it that appeals to me.

Fremantle is very much a working port so you can see everything from cargo ships to ocean liners and naval ships coming and going. Heading out and disappearing over the horizon.

There is one particular spot in Fremantle that I always visit, a lookout located next to the Round House (an old convict prison). From here you can see out over the boat marina and the waders beach. It's a fantastic view at sunset and one that I once started to paint. You can observe so much activity. People doing all sorts of things. On this particular day I observed a girl taking photographs.

Not your usual holiday snaps. I first noticed her because she was fully dressed in jeans but wading up to just above her knees in the water on the beach below. Her camera was pointed straight down in such a way that she could only be taking a photo of the surface of the water and whatever could be seen below.

When she had done that she moved out onto the beach and started holding dried sea weed up to her lense and taking extreme close ups of that. I figured she had to be some kind of 'arty' type person.

She eventually made her way up to the look out where I was, taking some photos of the view before heading off. I last saw her when I left, laying flat out on the steps I had to use, taking photos of the ground. Strange but only at this look out are your chances of seeing this kind of odd activity greatly increased.

Fremantle hasn't changed a great deal. In my walking I went through the famous Fremantle Markets - busy as always - and the not so famous, E-Shed markets - not so busy as the stall holders would like. I was going to have some lunch at the E-Shed but all the outdoor tables were in full sunlight and I didn't particularly like the atmosphere in the indoor section of the food hall.

In the end, I boarded the train back to Perth CBD and had a late lunch in the Foodhall at the Carillion Centre. Nothing special just a roast meat roll with chips. During my meal a girl sat at a table directly opposite me. She was eating chips and gravy with a boost juice... I guess you'd call that a balanced meal, healthy and unhealthy!

That was pretty much my day. I caught the train home shortly after I'd eaten because by the time I got home it would be starting to get dark. Not exactly thrill a minute but it is nice to get out on your own sometimes.

Comments

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

Movie Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) *No Spoilers*

T his is another film that I would have liked to have seen in a theatre but, for whatever reason, didn't get to. Having now seen  Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga  (2024) almost a year later I'm glad I didn't. Which is not to say it's bad. Like its predecessor Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which I enjoyed in a cinema immensely, this film would definitely benefit from being on a big screen for the spectacle and epic visuals of it all.  However unlike its predecessor there is so much going on, with back and forth between the waring parties, and Furiosa's story as well, you can't just sit back and kind of enjoy the ride. It's like writer/director, George Miller, wanted to cram in as many of his ideas as possible for the post apocalyptic world of Mad Max, because it's not likely he'll make another one, but whoever does, has a rich, detailed world of on screen source material to draw upon. The story begins with young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) and her journey from the ...

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices.  My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe?  Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Second Sunday Skateboard Session Episode 3, 4, and 5 - Definitely Seeing Progress

TET, Episode 5 Heelflip attempt. C ontinuing my ten part series of Second Sunday Skateboard sessions , the series where I'm attempting to master all seven basic skateboarding tricks in Braille Skateboarding's Skateboarding Made Simple Volume One , over twenty weeks (or ten fortnights).  Each episode is a short Sunday check in to show where I'm at after each two week period of practicing. Generally I aim for at least an hour practice session every second day if weather or my work schedule permits. These are the links to Episode One and Episode Two  should you feel the need to see where I started.  I'm not a complete newbie, having been a relatively hardcore skater through the late eighties and early nineties, however I was mostly a mini ramp and curb skater, and never really maintained my skills beyond riding and ollies.  The explosion of council built concrete parks came a decade too late for me to maintain my mini ramp skills. Once we closed our own skate park in ...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - World's Most Boring Government Re-elected by Landside - We're Even More Fine!

Anthony Albanese Victory by ChatGPT and TET. W hen I started writing about the 2025 Federal election the polls were suggesting the world's most boring government was crusing to a defeat . As it turns out, boring is good, and Australia wants more of it, handing the current government a landslide win with a majority vote. Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win a consecutive term, and the first Labor PM since Bob Hawke to do so. Some of that comes down to the leadership revolving door both major parties had through the mid 2000s. Although Anthony is my preferred PM over Dutton the irony is Dutton sounds more like a leader with a fairly commanding voice and an ability to speak well, without sounding like he's waffling and dodging questions, even if he is. Anthony, on the other hand, does have the ability (and speech writer) to say a lot of inspiring things but it gets lost in the delivery. He doesn't seem to know when to emphasise a point for effect. In h...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - Highlighting Some Minor Parties and Independents

W hile I am all for voting for minor parties and independent candidates, it can be concerning if too many of them win their seats. When independents hold the balance of power it gives them a lot of leverage to get their own policy ideas inserted into the mix. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing but it can slow everything down, and even sabotage policies and promises, that the government won the election with. It requires the government to work harder, and possibly make compromises, to get their policies implemented. Essentially they do what Australian pollical legend, and founder of The Australian Democrats, Senator Don Chipp, expounded in such simple terms, "keep the bastards honest." While I can't list and write about every independent and minor party candidate I can highlight a few, who already hold seats in parliament, and will no doubt be looking to hold onto them in 2025. The Conservatives Bob Katter - Katter's Australian Party There's a joke in the ...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - The Australian Democrats (Please Like Us Again) and The Greens

Image: Reve AI T here's not much to be said about the current Australian Democrats other than in 2025 Australian election, in May, they'll be out there hoping they win a seat... any seat... 'please like us again!' The Australian Democrats For just over two decades, from the late seventies onward, the Australian Democrats were the third most important party in the Federal government (if you don't count the National party since they've been on that coalition ticket with the Liberals for as long as I can remember). In fact, once I moved away from the Labor party, they were my top pick until the party slowly imploded in the early 2000's from a series of unfortunate events like leaders defecting to other parties, and a highly publicised incident of drunkenness, bullying, and abuse from a male party leader to a female colleague. It's been two decades since then (and that guy's with the Greens now)... please like us again! That aside, the party is still t...