Australia So Much to See
Snippets about Perth, Fremantle and Mandurah
The Boathouse at 16 Mews Road Fremantle
This large and dominating building is a relatively new and large building with under
cover boat storage.
The Boathouse is the first of its kind in Perth. A fully undercover, enclosed dry boat storage
facility and private marina located along Mews Road in the Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour.
The Boathouse offers storage racks
that are entirely undercover and completely enclosed.
Lead singer of rock band ACDC from 1974 until his sudden death in 1980, Scott’s Fremantle connection is remembered with a statue of
the singer at the Fishing Boat Harbour. Bon Scott’s grave in Fremantle cemetery has been classified as a heritage place by the
National Trust of Australia.
Long Jetty was constructed at Bathers Beach Fremantle in 1873 as a boat loading facility at the port. With further extensions, by
1896 is was one mile long. Following the construction of the Fremantle Harbour in 1897, the jetty was no long used for loading
freight. The jetty was demolished in 1920, leaving only piles showing at low tide.
The first convict transport arrived at Fremantle 1850. The Convict Establishment, as the prison was first known, was built by convict
labour between 1852 and 1859 using limestone quarried on the site. The first prisoners moved into the main cell block in 1855.
The
Establishment was renamed Fremantle Prison in 1867. Transportation ceased the following year. Nearly 10,000 convicts passed through
The Establishment between 1850 and 1868.
By 1886 less than 60 convicts remained inside a prison built to hold 1000 men. Fremantle
Prison then became the colony’s primary place of confinement for men, women and juveniles.
Following a series of prisoner riots and growing concerns with prison conditions, a royal commission in 1983 recommended the Prison’s
closure. Fremantle Prison is one of the largest surviving convict prisons in the world today.
The City of Mandurah is along the Peel-Harvey Estuary, a large system of shallow estuarine and saline, brackish and freshwater lakes
fed by the Murray, Serpentine, and Harvey rivers.
Tens of thousands of waterbirds, including large numbers of migrant shorebirds
from the northern hemisphere, use the estuary and lakes each year. The greater wetlands are a RAMSAR site. There are also thrombolites,
a primitive life form similar to stromatolites.
The estuary covers some 136 km² and is the largest such system in South Western
Australia. The estuary is approximately twice the size of Sydney Harbour.
The population of Mandurah was 83,931 in 2015.
References: Wikipedia
