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Swan River—Fremantle to Melville
A walk along the southern bank of the Swan River from the Fremantle Traffic Bridge - through East Fremantle - to the boundary of the City of Melville.
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Here's where I parked 14 April 2006—you can see my Holden Astra's mirror. The old steps climb up through tiny Kitson Park to Canning Hwy and the hotel now called Tradewinds. It was formerly the Plympton. Update: Kitson Park has since been redesigned, and some of the trees removed, and it does not look nearly as cute as it did here.
Interesting mixture of buildings here—even a vacant block if you have a couple of mill to spare. My black Astra SRI is on the left. ... Update: the block is no longer vacant, containing a half-dozen storey block of flats. And I traded the Astra in some time ago. It went too fast.
Still looking back to the west: there used to be a hotel with a restaurant called Sunny's Shining on the Swan, which was formerly the Captain Fremantle Motor Lodge, which was in its turn on the site of Matthew Moss's 1890 bungalow Wanaka. The large building in this shot is an apartment building that replaced the previous building (again).
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Looking under the Stirling Bridge eastward towards the Red Herring (formerly the Oyster Beds) in the distance.
I'm standing under the Bridge to take this: a mother and her two kids having fun with a kayak. It's unusual to see any kind of recreation in the actual water. I never see anyone swimming. I guess we all assume the river is too polluted.
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This was a house (known as Carroll's house, Driver House, and the Boatbuilder's House) that had been in disrepair since the late 1970s. Clough bought and restored it, and called it The Left Bank 'bar and cafe'.
Just across the road from the Left Bank are a couple of sets of mooring pens.
In the pens are ... boats. Mostly stinkboats.
Keeping hoi polloi in their place. Note that the authorities cannot spell 'personnel'.
Back on the land side of the road again is this artificial waterfall. The sign says Bicentennial Falls, so it must have been erected in 1988 (by people working for the dole?) In 2015, the steps and that bridge you can see a bit of are in disrepair.
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Not far away from The Left Bank is what was, for decades, 1932-1997, The Oyster Beds. It then became the Red Herring (as above), and is now Dome. They plan to develop it.
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The area to the right of the present new building used to contain actual oyster beds. As a kid, I remember the frames there.
Lots of rich folks live along the top of the cliff above the river.
One of the houses is something of a sad relic of departed worth. But I wouldn't mind owning it and living there. Update: it has been renovated since I took this photo.
This is a Marine Education Boatshed. Well, that's what the sign says.
Directly across the river from the education boatshed is Pier 21, which calls itself an 'apartment hotel'.
The slipway of the education boatshed, looking northeast towards a little cafe called The Zephyr. This replaced an even smaller eatery, a hamburger joint called The Leeuwin Chewin, because the site is right over the road from HMAS Leeuwin [Dutch for 'lion'] an RAN base. Update: the Leeuwin site is now for sale, the RAN having moved out.
This is the playground just to the north of The Zephyr. I'm going to continue walking a bit north and then east...
... along this path. The photos from The Zephyr onwards (above) were taken 16 February 2010. The ones before that were taken at 5mpx and then compressed; these were taken at 0.3mpx and not compressed.
That's a(nother) dog beach on the left. Floating gin palaces coming up.
Outrigger canoes (see next). That groyne behind was 'opened' by Jim McGinty; I wonder how one opens a groyne. I've just discovered - having been aware of Preston Point Road for fifty years - that this is in fact Preston Point, right here! It was named after the second lieutenant on HMS Success, who was also the first lieutenant on HMS Sulphur, William Preston.
One sign says welcome; the other says just the opposite. In between is Mr McGinty's plaque. From here, we turn eastward. ... Update 1 October 2013: I looked for these signs—none is still there. I wonder who decided to remove Mr McGinty's very official-looking plaque and where it is now.
The public path goes right along the highwater mark. But there are boatyards and slipways, so the path actually crosses them.
This is the exciting bit, where the 'path' requires a little bridge - which I assume is removable - to cross a railed slipway...
... as you see in the detail.
Black swans like to be close to humans: I guess they get fed sometimes.
And we continue: here the slipway is concrete.
What it says.
And this is the League's view, from their patio; they have two BBQs. You can see the Aquarama boat-stacker in the distance.
Aquarama. You might be able to make out a pelican in flight. Much more beautiful.
I first became aware of the public path the first time I had lunch at what was then the Boardwalk restaurant. It's now called Eat Greek. The public have been provided with their own boardwalk right next to the dining room.
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... as you can see here ...
... and here ...
More Marine Education - but only if you're authorized.
A final picnic area/playground ...
... and then the path has to leave the riverbank ...
... and turn south briefly to go up the hill.
After the flat land where the river makes a left-hand turn, going east, we come to a section where it is making a right-hand turn (as it travels westward to the sea) so that it has carved out its southern bank. The road has to leave the beach and climb to top of the cliff, and so does the path. Here is the point at which it's possible easily to walk near the water again (looking westward).
That was the western extremity of the carpark of the East Fremantle Yacht Club. Here's the other end, and the the Club building. These last four photos were taken at 3mpx and compressed, as that seems to give a better result.
And some of the rich folks' stink boats.
On the other side of the EFYC building, I'm pretty-much standing on the line that theoretically divides East Fremantle from Melville. So that's that. See the Melville photos to continue.
Garry Gillard | New: 14 April, 2006 | Now: 20 October, 2023
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally hosted at freotopia.org/river/eastfreo/index.html, and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.