WA-Freemnatle - Perth

The port of Freemantle is 20mins drive south west of Perth at the mouth of the Swan River. Many of the streets down town are full of wonderful heritage buildings, many housing businesses, coffee shops and restaurants. The old jail which was built by the convicts takes up a large portion of the area and is now a tourist attraction.

Freemantle has a large fishing fleet which supports the many sea food restaurants in the harbour. This area comes alive at night, brimming with people here for a meal. Mike and I had a fantastic sea food meal at one, and then enjoyed walking around looking at many of the fishing boats.(Photo 1 & 2).

While there, they were getting ready for the Freemantle boat show so we had a quick look at some of the boats for sale. Funny how I like all the ones that are about 1 million dollars upwards.

While in the area a “must do” is a boat ride on the Swan River from Perth to Freemantle. The trip takes about an hour and is very picturesque with beautiful homes and boats everywhere. One out of three families in Perth have a boat. The many multiple stacked boat storage facilities are seen in many of the bays along the river. Beaches with crystal clear water and stunning white sandy beaches are only 15 minutes from the city centre.

Perth is a very modern sprawling city which we found very easy to navigate around. The many stunning parks around the city give a feeling of relaxation and full of people enjoying them. The downtown area is walking distance to the rivers edge. (Photo 3).One of the city’s streets is a little England full of specialty shops. (Photo 4)Public buses are free within the city centre so it encourages people to leave their cars at home.

We visited the Perth mint where the gold that we saw mined at Kalgoorlie is melted into gold nuggets (Photo 5).

We encourage those of you who have not visited Perth to put this wonderful city on your travel list.