Swan River East Fremantle

Here's where I parked 14 April 2006 - you can see the Astra's mirror.
The old steps climb up through a tiny park to Canning Hwy and the hotel now called Tradewinds.
It was formerly the Plympton.

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.

Still looking back to the west: there used to be a hotel with a restaurant called Sunny's Shining on the Swan.
The large building in this shot is an apartment building that replaced it.

Looking under the Stirling Bridge eastward towards the Red Herring 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.

This was a house (once known as 'The Boatbuilder's House') that had been in disrepair since about the 1970s.
I always wanted to buy it and restore it. Clough did: and called it The Left Bank.
It's a hotel and restaurant, popular with younger people on sunny Sunday afternoons.

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.

Not far away from The Left Bank is The Red Herring.
For decades, 1921-1997, this was The Oyster Beds. (1940s photo here)

The area to the right of the present new building used to contain actual oyster beds.
I remember the frames there as a kid.

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.

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 (on land).

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 photo from The Zephryr onwards (above) were taken today, 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 he did it.
I've just discovered - having been aware of Preston Point Road for nearly fifty years -
that this is in fact Preston Point, right here!

One sign says welcome; the other says just the opposite.
In between is Mr McGinty's plaque.
From here, we turn eastward.

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 movable - 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.

... 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.