Cam and Lib With Us

A return to Fremantle

An unnecessary going away party led us to a night out back in Fremantle over a month after we left the hostel. If you read the previous article you will know that whilst we enjoyed Fremantle we left feeling a little underwhelmed with a sense that we hadn’t managed to do it justice. You can imagine our excitement then, on deciding we would have a little leaving party for our friend before he went into the mines (unnecessary as he was only going away for 2 weeks but any excuse for a drink right?) when he said the place he wanted to go to most was the Sail and Anchor in Fremantle. We were thoroughly looking forward to a round 2 in Fremantle and an opportunity to finally do justice to this place. Perhaps, however, we put a little too much pressure on the night…

The Sail and Anchor is an iconic landmark in the heart of Fremantle. It is a heritage listed pub with a spiralling staircase, wood panelled walls, pressed tin ceiling and friendly staff. It has a truly welcoming atmosphere and is filled with warmth and charm. At least that’s what their website says, we can’t tell you what we thought of it as we didn’t even make it inside. 

When we arrived in Fremantle, through no fault of our own, it was about 8 in the evening and our first drink, consumed at midday, felt like a very long time ago. Nevertheless, we felt confident we were about to have a great night despite the fact that Aussie nights out seem to generally wrap up around 10pm. We made our way to the front door of the Sail and Anchor with a spring in our step, buoyed up by expectation and our hearts full of hope only to be (very politely) told by the bouncer that last orders had already been called and we were too late. Perhaps such a late start on ANZAC day was not the best idea. Just like that the night was over. Everything was ruined. Our hearts were deflated as we sat, utterly defeated on the pavement contemplating where it all went wrong. We were so low even something called a “special coffee” from the kebab shop wasn’t able to lift our spirits. 

After quite some time in the gutter we had an epiphany. We were not prepared to let this night slip through our fingers quite so easily. We picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and set about formulating a new plan. The hostel we had stayed in was right over the road from a place called Freo Social. We could always hear the music blasting late into the night and every time we walked past it looked to be a very ‘happening’ place so we thought we would give it a go.

Well. When we arrived we could hear loud techno music filling our ears and thought ‘okay, let’s just go with it.’

Maybe we went on the wrong night. It seemed to be the kind of place where the atmosphere is very dependent on the type of music on the night, as it’s a live music venue. We settled ourselves in to what we wished was the quiet outdoor area and everything seemed to be going okay, until we needed the toilet. The journey to the toilet required battling through the DJ and dance floor area. It was quite the experience attempting to work our way through a crowd of people who appeared to have no idea where they were let alone that we were trying to squeeze past them. It was, however, quite entertaining to see the array of odd characters who had turned out for a night of what we can only assume they thought was dancing along with some light substance abuse. When we finally managed to reach the toilets it was not the safe haven we imagined we would reach after such an ordeal of a journey to get there. It wasn’t so much that the toilets weren’t nice, because they were absolutely fine and much cleaner than you’d expect from such a place. The issue was that everything, including us, was vibrating with the sheer intensity of the music coming from the speakers just outside. So much so that the toilet itself was practically a moving target which made for quite the unexpectedly entertaining game.

Back at the relative safety of our table we then found ourselves approached by a friendly stranger. After the obligatory ‘are you a murderer?’ safety-screening question was met with a confident ‘yes’ we invited the man to join us. He turned out to be very lovely and we had a nice little chat until his friends came to collect him.

After this we felt we had experienced all that Freo Social had to offer us and decided it was time to switch things up. We downed the rest of our drinks and set off in the direction of Honky Tonk Blues. Fremantle’s famed country bar perhaps best known for Wednesday night line dancing. 

Honky Tonk did not disappoint. As we entered the door from the street we were inclined to head straight back out again believing we had taken a wrong turn at some point as we were met only by a long white corridor. At the end of this corridor was a black curtain on the other side of which we found ourselves transported to a whole new world of wood panelling, neon lights, American flags, tight jeans, flashy belts, long boots, and, of course, cowboy hats. Momentarily paralysed with bewilderment at our new surroundings we began to take in the goings on around us. It became clear that Footloose was being played by the live band and all around us people were bursting into spontaneous choreographed line dances that could not have been more different to the dancing on display at Freo Social. At last the night was beginning to pick up.

We decided this was the ideal time to introduce our friends to the delights of the tequila soda lime and, from this point on, everything felt much much better. It’s impossible to say for sure but we are pretty certain that our opinions of Honky Tonk were in no way influenced by the amount of tequila consumed during our visit and feel pretty confident in declaring it the best bar in Fremantle, if not all of Western Australia. A poorly timed attempt at gun fingers also revealed the efficiency of their clean up operation as the broken glass was cleared up entirely mere seconds after it inexplicably appeared on the floor.

Despite the many virtues of Honky Tonk, our group, for some reason, decided it was worth trying one more place. Thus we swapped the best bar in Fremantle for, possibly, the worst. In search of more live music we led our friends down the street to Bar Orient, a bar in which we had enjoyed some surprisingly entertaining live music during our previous stay in Fremantle. The band that had been playing that night were called Jet Lag and appeared to be somewhat famous locally. This night, however, we were treated to a live show from a band called Yellowstone. We should have known what we were in for when our presence in the crowd doubled the size of the audience.

We had established a ‘power through’ attitude throughout the night and were not about to abandon it for such a minor setback. Armed with another round of tequila soda limes we settled in for what turned out to be one of the most entertaining shows of our lives watching 3 men just the wrong side of middle aged playing some of the most loved country songs in such a unique way that we didn’t even recognise them anymore. As we always say ‘music is interpretive,’ and these three men most definitely took that to heart putting their own spin on the tempo, lyrics, and even notes of the songs they were covering.

After what felt like weeks of this, but in reality was more like 25 minutes, it really was time to call it night and hop in the outrageously expensive taxi for a short 30 minute drive home to a nice warm meat box waiting to be consumed. So, what did we learn? Well, mostly, it wasn’t really worth the $80 we spent in taxi rides and would have been far better had we got there earlier and made an ’arvo’ out of it. That being said, we had a fantastic night and would rush back to that country bar in a heartbeat if only it were just a little easier (and cheaper) to get to. We also learnt that a tequila soda lime and a positive attitude can fix just about anything.