March 1, 2024 –
Freemantle WA
Today we left the ship and hiked through town. Freemantle is the port city in western Australia (WA) off the Swan River. We stopped and visited the Shipwrecks Museum which was quite interested, and then had lunch at Little Creatures a brewpub on the waterfront. Two local beers and a mushroom pizza and we headed back to the ship.
The Shipwrecks Museum has been existence for number of years and items are supplied by local donations from divers. The museum contains several wrecks from western Australia. There are 140 known wrecks off the Australia coast near Freemantle. Their largest display was the wreck of Batavia was a merchant ship that sank in 1628 on the way to Jakarta.
One interesting item found in the Batavia shipwreck was a packed stone portico. They also had pipes and household goods.
The museum had identified several ships by the ship bell located. There was one ship that the bell had no name, however they were able to trace the ship from an engraved company meat barrel and their records help provide the name of the ship who bought the barrel.
We sent sail and headed into an Antarctic front with winds blowing the waves up to 30ft. The ship was nice and steady, but you could see the bow move up and down significantly against the horizon. You did not want to stare since an uneasy feeling quickly was abound.
March 3 – Albany WA
On Sunday we sailed into port Albany. Now this is pronounced Al-bin here in Australia and not be confusion with pronunciation of Albany NY. This was the first deep water port in western Australia in the 1700’s. The entry into the port is between 2 peninsulas and only about 300m wide. The channel was narrow and then the captain had to do a 180 deg turn in limited space due to a freighter already in port.
The captain then backs the ship into dock area as if he was parallel parking. We had a nice walk-through town since it was Sunday morning, and there were a few craft fairs were open. This is really a nice area with white sand beaches and small-town atmosphere. The town is small but has one of the best preserved Victorian and Federation streetscapes in Australia. It is listed in the State Register as a Heritage location.
We had dinner at one of the Specialty restaurants onboard -Giovannie’s. We ordered Calamari, mushroom bisque, Mushroom Risotto, blue cheese Gnocchi, nice medium-rare filet with bottle of Australian red wine. The meal at the specialty restaurants are excellent. After dinner we sat at colony cove bar and met Joe Santilli an author of series of murder/mystery books based on Las Vegas area with lead character Jake Powell.
Next stop after two seadays is Adelaide onWednesday March 6th.