If you're in jail at least it's not an old Australian jail

I told Amy we're going to Fremantle Prison for our anniversary.

 Spousal reaction notwithstanding, we ended up outside Fremantle Prison on a rainy, rainy day. Just like when Tim Robbins escaped from Shawshank. But less crawling out of a sewer pipe full of... you know.

Everyone at home said that Australians were all prisoners, which is a common misconception. In reality, some Australians were just never caught, so technically, they weren't all prisoners.

There were 3 tours available: the normal tour, the tunnel tour (where you get a jumpsuit and hardhat and get to crawl around in underground passages) or the famous escapes tour. We ended up on the escapes tour with a tour guide who was the first Australian I could not understand.

For realz, that girl on the left looks confused and she's FROM Australia.

This was taken in solitary confinement. It was converted into a bathroom by the art school which was set up in the solitary wing after the prison closed in 1991.

Our accented unintelligible but presumably knowledgable tour guide.

Your typical solitary cell.

A peephole

There's a trapdoor here which was once used by a prisoner to hide from the guards under the floorboards. He hid there for 3 days and nobody knew where he was. He was eventually found out when they smelled toast coming from the kitchen where nobody was supposed to be. They followed the smell to this room and found him and several crusts under this trapdoor.

No unauthorized access unless you use the dog door.

 

At times during the tour, you can really feel how hopeless prisoners must have felt.

No escape to be had. Home is thousands of kilometers overseas. Things must have been so bleak...

So bleak...

And then the guide starts talking and you're like I can't tell if he's talking or just eating a bowl of peanut butter out loud.

Back when this jail was started they used to keep boys in here. The youngest one was 7, in for stealing bread.

There was also a women's section of the jail. This razor wire wall was how they kept the women from breaking into the men's side. According to the guide, the men never escaped into the women's section. I didn't research it, it's what the guide said. I think.

Death row. It has since been turned into offices. I'm not sure what that says exactly about the people who work their office jobs in this cell block, but I think it's hard to deny that it says something.

 

Cell 17 on death row. Or 18. You'd think they would clear up that kind of thing on this block.

DEATH ROW CELL 26

Death row cell 24. Also a massage parlor that offers aromatherapy. The leaves on the door totally make me not think of people getting the chair.

The yard. This is where inmates would be sent for exercise while they were quarantined prior to being released into the prison population. One inmate managed to make it to the doctor's office where he stole some sedatives and poured it into a guard's soup on a rainy day. After the guard passed out he stole his uniform and escaped.

One prisoner passed his time drawing on the walls of his cells, subsequently covering up his drawings with oatmeal so he wouldn't get in trouble for defacing prison property. It wasn't until a few years after his death that his drawings were discovered.

The pamphlet called him the Michaelangelo of Fremantle Prison, but there is no evidence to suggest he used nunchuks.

Bon Scott of ACDC fame stayed here once.

Nobody noticed the door on the right was installed upside down. Or maybe nobody cared. Probably nobody cared. It's a serious problem here.

Parole office

Catwalk where the guards would supervise working prisoners. Once there was a large regatta in town and all the guards left the prisoners working on a garden outside the walls while they watched the sailing on the other side of the prison. Needless to say, eventually the prisoners just dropped their tools and ran for freedom.

The small round hut in the middle of the photo is a "pissoir". Interestingly, although the jail was closed in 1991, the cells still used bucket toilets until the end because inmates kept smashing any chemical toilet that was installed.

Jailbirds.