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Thursday 24 May 2007

Freo; ghosts and sleep.

Alright, giving you guys something of decent length to read for once :D

Last night I had a lit excursion thing to do with the book that we are reading Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, an aussie set and written story, alright I guess, I mainly liked the slang side of things. Anyways, it went from 3.30pm til ...9.15pm or so, and I am -tired- as. It was pretty good actually, we dropped by a couple of old houses, to look at them and then we went to Cicerellos for dinner (Fish and chips...yay, seafood is -so- not my thing). From there, a couple of photographs later, we were at the Fremantle Prison.

It's a rather infamous prison actually, if you're Aussie that is, you'll have heard of Moondyne Joe? The aussie Hiudini, litterally. He was in there, they had this special cell crafted for him, three foot (one metre) by five foot (Just over one and a half) out of solid jarra wood, there are numerous nails driven into the wood so that he couldn't scratch through it, and they had him bolted to the floor. This was the guy that was repeatedly captured, imprisoned and then repeatedly escaped. Fremantle was the last place he was held before they finally managed to execute him, in that self-same cell. He escaped once before, from that cell you know.

They took him outside, after a doctor said it was inhumane to treat a person so, and they set him to breaking rocks with a hammer. After a couple of weeks, the guards stopped taking the broken rocks away and he started piling them up infront of him until the guards could no longer see him. All well and good, they could still hear him chipping at those rocks right? Wrong, he was working on the wall instead. Yes, chipped a hole in the wall and crawled to freedome!

But that's enough about Joe.

We took the torchlight tour, which means that we each get widdle torches and get a tour, at night, around the prison, a prison I'll have you know, that is undeniably haunted. Everyone says so, the tour guides, psychics, you name it. As we were walking through, I was the backstop which meant that I got to be last through every door and shut the open ones behind me yay! It was awesome.

Course, me being me, I'm ...shall we say, sensitive to the paranormal. I know for a fact, that we were watched the entire tour from the second floor balcony by convicts (it's only open for tourism), and when there was no balcony, we were followed. I kept on seeing the silhouette of a fairly tall man, slightly heavy set, following us. That was fine, I mean, I'm used to that sort of thing you know? And what's so scary about being followed?

But, the rest of my class, being teenaged girls, didn't believe me and got overly freaked by the whole atmosphere. -I- only got freaked myself, when I entered the cell of one of the inmates. He had a specialised cell of his own, where everything, beds, chairs, whatever, had to be bolted to the floor otherwise he would use them as weapons against the guards. Nice bloke eh? Well, I was stickybeaking in his cell, for the simple reason that on the back wall, opposite of the door, was this absolutely awesome painting, I rather liked the painting. So there I was, stepping into his cell, and looking at this painting. I swear to you, I tell no lie, but not two minutes after stepping in, I felt something to my right, I ignored it, I mean, it was just the bed. I wasn't freaked until I heard a whisper in my right ear, a sibilant hiss holding the words

"Will you stay and keep my company?"

Now I did what any sane, normal girl would do...I froze, shook my head and said "Uh..no thanks, I have to go now." before all but bolting from the cell. I mean, he was a very VIOLENT criminal, exceptionally so and for a maximum security prison, that's saying something!

Water dripping, footsteps, people- convicts, inmates watching us as we went through the prison, glowing orbs of light...yeah, no problem. I can deal with that, I mean, it wasn't personal you know? But -that-, that little episode sent shivers down my spine.

But, I reccomend it actually, for everyone to go and experience the Fremantle Prison Torchlight tour. You might experience something paranormal and exciting like I did. :D

Oh, and sleeping. Ironically, once I got home after the tour, at around 10.30pm, I did my before bed stuff, you know, showering etc, and when my head hit that pillow I was out like a light, literally. Haven't slept so well in years...except that I had to wake up to deal with a little issue. *coughs* female problem and I'll leave it at that.

And so, I bid you adieu, enjoy the first decent sized post in ....well, a month or so.

1 comment:

Sarah said...

"Bravery is easier by daylight."

I'm thinking to myself, "Yeah, maybe I can go on that tour, to face my fears and see the darker side of the world."

If I were to go there at night, I'd be swearing and pissbolting at the first creaky door. Still, that's quite an experience. I wonder how many people saw ghosts, encountered something, or were just plain paranoid? They'll have trouble sleeping, methinks.