Prisons & Blues & Roots

I spent the day before yesterday being a tourist around Perth and Fremantle. Spent the morning walking around Kings Park in Perth, which is like a huge nature reserve to the west of the city. Then I took the river boat down to Fremantle, which took about an hour - I even saw a dolphin! Fremantle is a fairly small nautical town with lots of shops for surfers and loads of little cafés dotted around the place.

I'd been recommended the tour of the old British Convict Prison there, so I went and did that while Adam went and had a coffee nearby because he wasn't feeling too well. The prison was fascinating to see, even if the tour did have a bit too much 'oooh look, this room is haunted' and 'if you come here at night you can hear so-and-so's footsteps in the coridoors'.

Yesterday was pretty special though. Again in Fremantle, me and Adam went to the Blues & Roots festival along with 40,000 others. It was a huge show with 3 stages and a lot of very good music. We met a few of Adam's friends and work collegues and spent the day with them. Highlights for me would include Blue King Brown, LABJACD (Aussie hip-hop), Easy Star All-Stars (by far my favourite of the day), Zappa plays Zappa and The Special Beat. Me and Rus (Adam's mate) got to go backstage with The Special Beat and get a song list signed and have a chat with the band. They're all from in and around London and were just like, well... normal people. We spent most of the time talking about football.

I couldn't really have asked for a better welcome to Australia than that, to be honest.

Today's gonna be a lazy day. Might go for a bike ride once it's cooled down a bit (it's very slightly hotter than the UK here; ~30degC at the moment) and then go to a local sports bar to watch Everton vs Man U.

Hope all's well back home.
Matt


Kings Park:





Fremantle Prison:




Blues & Roots festival: