July 3: Into the Tunnels

When Cathie and I did the Fremantle Prison tour, we saw there was a tour that went down into the tunnels under the prison. Of course I wanted to do it! Cathie had to work today, so I took the opportunity to do the tunnels tour. I took the train into Perth, then changed to the Fremantle train. It was the long way to get there (I could have taken the bus), but I like the train. I planned to do the 12:00 tour, but when I rocked up to the ticket window, the woman said the 12:00 tour was booked out. There was space on the 1:40 tour, so I bought a ticket for that one. I had quite a bit of time to kill (it was only about 10:30), so I walked back down to where the shops were and had a look around to decide where I would eat lunch. Even though there was a Subway, I ate at a place called Culley’s that has been in Freo since 1925. It seemed popular, and truth be told, it was better than Subway (no, really!).

Back up at the prison, I took a couple of photos while I walked around and read every single sign and info board about the prison.

Can you tell by the flag that it was a bit windy today?

Wray Gate

Info board

Finally, it was time for the tour. There were 10 of us. First we had to get suited up in our tunnel gear. This consisted of a paper jumpsuit, rubber boots, helmet with headlamp, safety harness, and lifejacket. Now you are probably thinking, lifejacket? So, the tunnels, which were dug by the prisoners (not convicts...there’s a difference), were not attempts to escape, but dug to access the fresh water that was in the aquifer directly under the prison. As is true with much of Western Australia, water was the biggest issue when the colony was being settled. Wells had been dug down in the main settlement, but the water was soon contaminated from the cesspools that were dug nearby. Disease was rampant. Interestingly, the prisoners had better water than the people in the settlement. The prison eventually supplied all the water to the settlement, as well as the prison. However, eventually, because so much water was being taken, the water started to become salty. To rectify that, several wells were dug far deeper to a much larger aquifer. While the water had originally been pumped out by hand, courtesy of the prisoners, when the wells were dug, steam engine pumps were developed to pump the water. The pumps were able to pump so much water that they had to dig more tunnels to allow the water to flow more quickly. 

Eventually other systems took over supplying water, and the pumps and tunnels were no longer needed. The pumps are gone, but the tunnels are still there. Of course, there is still water in these tunnels. There are some “dry” tunnels, but not today (due to the rain). The water is deep enough to require the use of little boats to navigate through them. Hence, the lifejackets (they were very unobtrusive, and only inflate if they come in contact with water).

We had a safety demo about how to operate the fall arrest things that connected to the harnesses when we were climbing down the ladders to get to the tunnels. We were paired up with a ladder buddy (since I was by myself, and there was a family of three, my ladder buddy was Brian from Melbourne). We descended town the ladder facing each other on each side of the ladder. Brian and I were first. There were platforms periodically that we had to slide the arrester sideways, then turn it to continue down the next ladder. Brian had a bit of trouble, but mine went smoothly. 

Once were were almost to the bottom, we unhooked from the vertical ladder, and went down one more easier ladder to tunnel level. The boats were there, but first we did some walking through the “dry” tunnels. We had to walk carefully because the water was quite high from yesterday’s rain. Walk too fast, and the water would slosh into the boots. At the end of the dry tunnel walk (much of which was spent walking hunched over so as to not hit our heads on the ceiling), we turned off our headlamps and stood for awhile in the pitch black, imagining what it would have been like for the prisoners (prior to headlamps...they used candles and whale oil lanterns). 

We turned around and slowly waded back to the boats. My ladder buddy, Brian, was also my boat buddy. Paddling a plastic boat in a tunnel is not that easy. After awhile, we just gave up on the paddles, pulled ourselves along with our hands on the tunnel walls and occasional beams, and frequently hitting the walls (basically zig zagging back and forth). The hardest part was when we turned off our headlamps and just pulled ourselves along, blindly reaching out for the walls. 

We came to a place where we could see daylight. There was a skeleton ladder that went up to an emergency exit. We had looked down from the top before we went in.

The emergency exit from the top.

We continued our loop until we returned to where we had gotten into boats. From here, we climbed back up the ladders to the end of the tour. Here’s a photo (we weren’t allowed to bring anything with us into the tunnels) taken afterward.

Attractive jumpsuit, don’t you think?

After the tour, I hoofed it back to the train station. Back in Perth, I saw the Mandurah train was leaving in one minute. I ran to the platform, and hopped on the train. Then, I realized I was on the wrong train. Fortunately, the doors hadn’t closed yet, and I hopped off. Turns out, I had missed the Mandurah train (no worries...another one was just 4 minutes away). 

It was a good day! Tomorrow, I think I’ll be packing Tilmann into his case. We are going to Busselton, and points south, on Thursday, and not returning until the day before I leave. I’ll not be riding Tilmann anymore...