With perfect timing on the part of Taylor Marine our life-raft was delivered to the club the day after our arrival and is now back where it should be and hopefully where it will stay, in its cradle on the outside of Zoonie’s handrail.

 

Our first trip into Freo revealed a well preserved town centre and a fellow circumnavigator in the form of the volunteer leading school children around the round house, a 12 sided tower built on Arthur Head as a gaol in 1831. This gentleman was so approachable to the children I was impressed. He later spared us the time to chat about crossing the Indian Ocean and how he helped vessels through the Panama Canal 17 times before bringing his own 52 foot ferro cement boat through. He’d have known it like the back of his hand by then! He also loved to regale how the Round House escaped demolition a few years ago because the warder living close by complained about the threat to demolish this oldest public building in WA because it kept the pesky cold winds off his vegetable patch; he didn’t care about the means it was the end that was important!

 

We had a nice dark ale and bowl of chips sitting on the balcony of the National Hotel before catching the free blue cat bus back to the marina. Museums next!