Father's Day Adventures: Decommissioned Fremantle Power Station

 We had a great day on Aussie Father's Day. Rein, Silka and I made Tom blueberry pancakes and rashers (bacon) for breakfast. We then allowed Tom to read a bit of the paper and then we packed up the bikes and a some snacks to go for a bike ride near Fremantle. We would bike for the afternoon and then go to Little Creatures Brewery for dinner. When we got down to Freo, we decided to bike south towards Port Coogee. The kids did really well in biking the whole way and we really enjoyed our meal at Little Creatures. An unexpected highlight was a decommissioned power station that we rode by that was located right beside a brand new subdivision going up in Coogee along the water front. Tom decided to check for a short cut along the water front to avoid having to go back up to the road. Well, we rode  to this abandoned power station with impressive art deco architecture. Signs soon revealed that it has been designated a heritage site. They also stated that all "Trespassers will be prosecuted". You can see the sign above the kids in the photo above. Anyways, this did not deter us. Back in Canada this building would have been surrounded by double fencing and security would have been present through video taping or in human form. In true cavalier but refreshingly Aussie form, it was obvious that it didn't exist here. I was trying to be the responsible one by demanding that we are not allowed to go in there but as Tom stepped over the crumbling threshold and the kids scrambled over after him, my own curiosity compelled me to follow. Well, we were awestruck. Despite the state the monolith is in now, you could imagine how beautiful this building was between 1946 (when it was built) and 1985 (when it was shut down). Over the years that it has stood silent, individuals have come and gone leaving their marks. It is now a show case of graffiti. It is beautiful in a post-apocalyptic way. Vegetation is pushing through the floors and growing over the walls, swallows would dive in and out of the hundreds of windows while we were there - windows that no longer held what were at one time thousands of panes of glass. Material remnants fluttered against the windows reaching out to the outside world. It was fascinating. There was an upstairs too - a grand staircase led you up there but I had to draw the line somewhere. Rein wasn't happy, of course.

While we there, someone was spraying some art out of a can, someone was setting up a tripod to take photos and there were a few others there to take a peek as well. I took a bunch of pictures and a video as I walked through (check it out below). There is another blog that has some great pictures posted of some of the areas we didn't get to: Urban Ghosts .