It's been the Anzac Day weekend here in Australia- kind of like an extra Remembrance Sunday with a bank holiday attached and with a slight chip on the shoulder because all too often the Aussies were the foot soldiers under ineffective British officers.  I urge everybody who reads this to look up the story of the Kokoda Trail during the Second World War as an example of Australian determination under fire.

Anyway, today I went to Freo (otherwise Fremantle), the major port in Western Australia and also Perth's playground.  Being a public holiday, the popular beaches were already filling with gorgeous specimens of Aussie womanhood in skimpy cossies as we headed down.  The thing about Freo is that it's still a working port- there are freighters out at sea waiting to unload and the USS Kitty Hawk was in town, so the papers are full of stories of American sailors starting fights in bars rather than following the honourable tradition of 'On the Town' and breaking into spontaneous song.

The maritime museum here is good- very imaginatively laid out, as if they've actively tried to avoid just having boats lined up in a hall.  Boats and walkways are positioned at unusual angles, and the role of sea transport in Australia's history told concisely.  They have Australia II, the yacht which won the Americas Cup, and the HMAS Ovens, a submarine which you can tour.  And they have the lamp from the Cape Leveque lighthouse. The other main attraction is Fremantle Prison-  built in Victorian times and in use until 1991.  The amazing thing about it is that the majority of it hasn't been tarted up for tourists at all- the rusty bits have been left rusty and they could have taken the prisoners out ten minutes ago.  And it's not without its reminders that prison isn't a jolly holiday camp- that the inmates were there for a good reason in the majority of cases and some of them for very unpleasant reasons indeed.  Some of them even come back and do tours, although it's a little sad that, as the law in Western Australia says that you can't work for the state if you have a criminal record, they had to let some who were working as guides go.

That's about it for now- the fish and chips at Ciccarello's on the quayside is great, although I've no idea what kind of fish it was.