Today we took the train to Perth to explore the city, it is quite different to Fremantle a real mix of old and new. It is only about 25 minutes on the train and we were in the centre of the city. We have a couple of historic walks around the town, the first was called Boom or bust, which is a walk through the city highlighting the boom created by gold. The population swelled from 8,500 to 27,000 in less than a decade which is what turned the remote town into a cosmopolitan city. We started at the Town Hall which was opened in 1870 and is the only capital city town hall in Australia that was built by convicts, apparently in the late 1870s it was home to the city’s firefighting equipment but unfortunately the firefighters were located some distance away and the horses actually taxi’s if the bell rang signifying a fire the taxi drivers had to drive to the town hall and untether their horses. We walked around a number of hotel and arcades until we came to London court which is a mock Elizabethan reproduction of a ‘London’ street although I am not sure many of them ever looked quite like this it seemed rather more Harry Potter than West End but is was very nice all the same. It was actually built in 1937 as a gift to Perth by the millionaire Claude de Bernales who had a strong attachment to England. We continued walking past a number of hotel buildings although not many are still operating as such. The boom in gold meant that the town was so busy they couldn’t build hotels quickly enough and a number of visitors ended up sleeping at the train station rather than in hotels. We walked up to the Fire Station which is now a museum and was built in 1901 and consolidated the fire equipment, crews and horses in one space for the first time. Just down the road from there is the Royal Perth Hospital which is still a working hospital first proposed in the 1840s when an almost non-existent health service led to plans for a dedicated hospital building which was actually abandoned due to lack of funds. In July 1855 the Royal Perth Hospital was optically opened with wards for males and females and a basement that continued stores, kitchen, mental health patient and nurses quarters our final stop on this tour was the Perth Mint which was also the final destination of the raw product. The original purpose of the mint was to produce coins to be used as currency in the rapidly increasing town. The Perth Mint was one of three branches of the British Royal Mint in Australia and by the time the mint was constructed gold was responsible for nearly 90 per cent of the colonies wealth. The mint operated under British control until 1970 when ownership was transferred to the Western Australia Government. We walked back to the centre of town to have some lunch before starting our next walk which was Convicts and Colonials. This again started at the Town hall and this time it focused on the impact that convicts had on the area. Transportation only started in 1850 as a result of a demand for cheap and plentiful supply of labour for the small population. The introduction of convicts caused much debate and controversy amongst the residents who feared their free colony would be forever tainted by convicts, transportation to Western Australia only lasted for 18 years but the legacy of this period is embedded in the streets of the city and folklore of the state. The town hall is where the convicts had to report once they had been given their ticket of leave. Men who had received their ticket of leave could travel to the district of their choice but had to report to the town magistrate on arrival and twice a year after that as well as carrying a pass from the magistrate to leave the district. Although they were allowed to work for themselves and others, own land and property and marry they had to be indoors after 10pm and carry their ticket with them at all times, its not clear if women had to do the same. Just down the road from the town hall is the Deanery which was originally where the Government installed a public whipping post in an effort to reduce crime through public humiliation, it was also briefly the location of Perths first gaol but the temporary lock up became a laughing stock as it was so easy to escape from the mud walled cells. Further down the road is the Government House which is the only vice-regal residence in Australia, it is very impressive but unfortunately we couldn’t go in possibly because it is still used as a residence, around the back of Government House is the Old Court House and Supreme court. The Old Court House is the oldest surviving building in central Perth, the first European executed in the colony was sentenced to death here in 1844 and hanged publicly in front of the Round House in Fremantle. The Supreme Court building was opened in 1903 and the first case heard there resulted in an ex-convict being sentenced to death for robbery with violence and the last person to be hung in Western Australia was tried and convicted for murder in the Supreme Court in 1964. From here we walked back up the road to the station and jumped on the train back to Fremantle, the wind has really picked up as we walked back to the apartment although the sun is still out we might even sit on the balcony if it isn’t too windy.
