Geraldton to Brisbane 3 Fremantle
This story was planned to get us somewhat further around but so much happened here that Fremantle stories will have to do. I am out of hours so won’t be well checked - not that I can see my mistakes in any case!
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Friday 2/2/24 Freemantle
Bit of a slow start as we all knackered after leaving Dongara at 2:20am and sailing through the day and night to arrive Fremantle early morning.
Into the Fremantle Sailing Club. Apparently some 900 boats in the marina. Apparently, everybody at home as there are very few empty bays. A thing about boats is that they spend only a very small percentage of their life actually boating and are mostly tied up. The fascination must work though as Matthew estimates that there might be $1.3b tied up here. Defiantly a home of “White Boats”. As distinct from working boats like cray boats. We are told that there are lots of other marinas in the southwest. Still, we are pleased to find out that a special gesture to interstate boats is that they get three days free mooring. Can’t be bad.
First stop is a long hot shower and a proper dunny. We do have showers and heads (toilets) on board. The ships dunnys can’t be used in the marina. Sometimes the hot water works but there is relatively little fresh water on board, so showers are of the wet down, lather up then wash off. Not a leisurely process and not every day.
There is an outbreak of cleaning on board. The gurney and gumption are out to swab the decks and polish the rails etc. Not my thing so I escape to do the laundry a good excuse to hide out for an hour or two. The drier very slow… Turns out that Allan is a bit OCD when it comes to such things, so he is keen. Matthew and David just a bit of HPB syndrome (house proud bitch). They do a wonderful job and the only places you can still see the Geraldton red dust is high on the mast spreaders etc.
I get back from the washing to find that the dingy steering cable has been delivered and looks to be the right one. Dave gets it installed in a few minutes and the big dingy is seaworthy again.
Matthew and I arranged to meet up with cousin John Durack for dinner. He is referred to in the east as Kildurk John as distinct from my brother John who lives in Sydney. Kildurk John grew up on Kildurk Station the last of the Durack properties held in the Kimberly. Therin lie many stories for others to tell. He was also a veteran of the Durack River walk in 2018 which went so close to killing me. (See earlier river stories.)
After a complicated taxi ride - the cab couldn’t find the sailing club entrance and Matthew had the wrong address for the restaurant. A very entertaining driver who spoke barely understandable English but was very cheerful. The classic comedy of errors. We had an excellent Indian meal with John, his wife Jean and their long-time neighbours and friends David and Ria. John provided an excellent red from his vineyard in the south. David and I came from a similar world. He worked for Schlumberger in oil and gas services - mostly down hole stuff from what I understood. I on the other hand worked in oil and gas but mostly in the pipeline and processing end. He retired at, he claimed the perfect age of fifty-two and a half and is now into prospecting which he takes very seriously and had many tales of wonderful finds.
John and Jean volunteered to drive us back to the Sailing Club. Turned out to be just as much a comedy of errors as the taxi. We saw a fair bit of Fremantle and eventually made it back to the boat.
Saturday 3/2/24
Matthew, Allen and I head out for a walk to check out the surrounds. Walked past many beaches with lots of swimmers, walkers, joggers and dogs. We returned through the suburbs. Looked like really good place to be. A mixture of old and new mostly smaller almost terrace houses. The new and old almost indistinguishable. Clean, tidy well tendered gardens. We had coffee at a very trendy place with many of the younger demographic hanging out.
My new fan, Dee, sent me a reference to the wonderful yellow and red tree which grew in many of the Fremantle gardens. Apparently, Eucalyptus erythrocorys. Link
We watched a lot of kids trying to sail tiny boats. All having a great time. Complete chaos. Our boat tied up just behind the first row of boats. That will be our tall mast in the centre with the genoa and jib running down to the left.
Our cousin Sally shows up. We keep in touch but see very rarely (mostly at funerals I am afraid). Sally is from our mother’s side of the family and grew up in Bathurst but has lived in Perth for many years. She is a town planner. We had a lot of ground to cover with update on her family, and her brothers Richard (Sydney) and Nicholas (variously UK and Monaco) and many others. We have an excellent fish and chips lunch at the club.
David who has been out doing his “relies” shows up on the boat with Scrunchie, his daughter in law’s farther, his wife Sara and another daughter Dee - I think? Very complicated. They are equipped with the makings of the cheese platter and home stilled bourbon, pink gin and other provisions. The bourbon goes down really easily. They head off to the club for dinner. Matthew and I still recovering from the huge lunch and crash.
The wind has picked up as forecast. A 30knt southerly blowing with a storm passing. Good thing we are tied up. Would be unpleasant out at sea.
Turn the volume up to hear the howling of the wind in the rigging.
Sunday 4/2/24
Matthew and I back to the trendy coffee shop and bakery in the morning, to get another loaf of sour dough bread. We do a bit more of the suburb to get a few photos.
Matthew and I head off to visit our cousin Patsy Millett. Patsy is Dame Mary Durack’s daughter who has carried on Mary’s work of documenting lives mostly past. Her recently published book INSEPARABLE ELEMENTS records her mother’s career and the many and tangled family intricateness.
I would last have met face to face with Patsy in about the mid 1960s on one of the few family trips to Perth from “over east” when I was young. Although the spacing in time and distance are long the links it seems remain strong. We covered lots of ground over tea. A fantastic range of stories and characters to recall. Patsy has so many stories and sagas in her mind and recorded or documented. Matthew particularly interested in the Connor, Doherty part of the Connor, Doherty & Durack story. Patsy knows the story - complicated spanning many years. Another story which perhaps Patsy will be able to put down.
Leo, Patsy’s grandson joined us for tea. He evidently already is building a stock of stories. He has abandoned his study of the law to take up a plumbing apprentice ship which immediately allows him to make some money. He will evidently need some money as he is in a gold mining partnership. No lack of ambition.
Matthew and I then head off for lunch with cousin Kildurk John, Jean and various other cousins.
John’s sister Anne is there. I haven’t seen much of her over the years, but she showed up to help my wife Ruth when Ruth had to make the emergency dash to rescue me from the Royal Perth hospital where I had a very close escape from dying of dehydration or worse being left with no kidneys back in 2018.
John’s brother Doug and wife Linda were there. Doug was veteran of my brother John and my trip around Australia in 1972. He was our paying passenger across the Nullarbor Plain to the east. John and I had run out of fuel money.
We could have yarned on for many hours, but Perpetua was keen to come on board for an inspection of the boat. She drove us back to the boat.
Meantime Dee had taken Dave on the shopping expedition to get stores for the next leg. She and her friend Jasmine were still on board.
Then John’s mates from dinner David and Ria showed up for a look at the boat. We couldn’t entice them on board. Possibly because of a bit of a jump in the howling wind.
In the way of these things, it turns out that Perpetua knew these girls well from her time in Broome.
This story was to get us a bit further in our journey, but stories of Fremantle will have to do for now.
The wind is up again 35knts. Forecast to drop for our early morning departure 5:00 ish tomorrow morning.