Freo still full of Cup spirit

On a sunny winter's day in Fremantle, coffee-drinkers laze outside the cafes that line "cappuccino strip" and it's warm enough to wear a T-shirt. Fremantle, or Freo as the locals call it, is not just a stop for overseas tourists but a thriving port town that is very popular with out-of-state Australians and day-trippers from the nearby Western Australian capital Perth.

For tourists, Fremantle's proximity to Perth is a big plus in a state where driving times are measured in days rather than hours, and where any visitor intent on seeing everything Western Australia has to offer would be well advised to charter a plane. From Perth, Fremantle is a leisurely half-hour ferry ride up the Swan River or a convenient bus or train ride away.

The trip up the slow-flowing Swan, more like a lake than a river, is an opportunity to goggle at the homes of some of the state's wealthiest families. Their mansions are set in large compounds enclosed by high walls, with boatsheds built into the riverbank.

Western Australia has more millionaires than any state in Australia, in part because of its natural riches of oil and minerals.

One of the most famous is Alan Bond, the architect of Australia's America's Cup victory and the man largely responsible for Fremantle's transformation from a dilapidated port town favoured by drunken sailors and prostitutes to tourism gem.

The flat-bottomed ferries from Perth arrive at Fremantle's Victoria Quay and from there it's simply a matter of choosing what to do and see, from fish markets to a tour of the town's bleak colonial prisons, or fish and chips on the beach.

One of the newer attractions at the tip of the quay is the stylish Western Australia Maritime Museum. The state is justifiably proud of the building's elegant sail-like design and huge windows that reflect the deep turquoise of the Indian Ocean - even if Sydneysiders like to joke that it's a design rip-off of the northern wing of the Sydney Opera House.

The museum is a celebration of Western Australia's seagoing past, from shipwrecks and submarines to Aboriginal boats.

The port, the biggest in the state, was the gateway for millions of settlers who arrived after miserably long and arduous sea voyages to find a barren and untamed landscape.

A statue on Victoria Quay pays tribute to those hardy pioneers. The bronze sculpture shows a settler trudging from the port, his shoulders bent by the trunk he carries on his back, while a small dingo-like dog looks curiously up at him.

The museum also honours those early migrants with its Welcoming Walls exhibition, where Western Australians whose forebears arrived through Fremantle are encouraged to buy an engraved listing of their family name and date of arrival of the ship. It has a wide range of all things maritime, including shipwrecks, whaling and pearling boats, even a decommissioned submarine.

Pride of place goes to Australia II. The snatching of the cup in 1983 was Western Australia's finest yachting moment and the display is a recreation of that triumphant day.

The yacht's mast stretches from the floor of the museum to the highest point of its peaked roof. Models of the crew man the boat and a support team cheers them on.

Chief among that support team is Bond, the most famous millionaire in a state that has a habit of producing some of the country's most colourful tycoons.

He rose to become one of the richest men in Australia and then fell just as far, jailed in 1996 for four years after committing the country's biggest corporate fraud.

But in 1983 he was a national hero, the first non-American in 132 years to take the America's Cup from the United States.

The transformation of Fremantle into a bustling seaside resort of restaurants, cafes and fish and craft markets started when the Royal Perth Yacht Club embarked on plans to host one of the world's biggest international yachting events.

Fremantle's Fishing Boat Harbour, the forerunner of Auckland's Viaduct Harbour, was built for the America's Cup syndicates and visiting superyachts and on a Saturday night the cafes and restaurants are packed with families and couples ready for a night on the town.

One of the most popular eateries by the harbour is the barn-like Cicerellos, a fish restaurant with giant tropical fish tanks lining the walls and plenty of outside tables on a big wooden deck built over the water.

The restaurant's fast-food ordering system should be adopted in New Zealand. Staff hand you a flying-saucer-shaped disc when you place your order, then you find a table near the water, cold glass of chardonnay in hand. When your food is ready to be collected the disc lights up and beeps.

From Fishing Boat Harbour it's a short stroll through the giant norfolk pines in Esplanade Park to the Esplanade Hotel. It offers first-rate accommodation and rooms with balconies looking over the park to the sea.

Fremantle's fortunes have been mixed since those first migrants arrived more than a century ago, but its council and residents are determined to continue making the most of the good fortune that came their way through the America's Cup.

Victoria Quay is undergoing another facelift and the town's historic buildings are preserved from the demolition hammer, ensuring Fremantle will continue as one of the jewels of Western Australia tourism.

* Anne Beston travelled as guest of Tourism Western Australia and Air New Zealand.