IT has taken almost 10 years, but I'm finally back in Perth where this whole journalism thing started at Murdoch University in 1998.
I'm spending a few days in Fremantle, invited by the Freo City Council, to take in the sights and sounds of the annual Fremantle Street Arts Festival.
I spent a lot of time in Fremantle when a resident of the great state out west, coming here to shop and socialise, so it's great to be back and visit those spots I spent so much time when I was a sociable uni student and rookie journalist.
Freo hasn't changed much in the years since I left and I'm happy to see Fishingboat Harbour, the precinct gentrified by Mr Bond before the Amercia's Cup circus came to town in 1987, is just the same as the last time I ate fish and chips on the wharf outside Kailis.
The fishing boats are still there, Kailis and Cicerellos are still doing big business with neon casting colourful shadows on the water, and the oysters and sardines are just as good as I remember.
There has been one little change since I left, and it has to do with the area's colorful history.
When I lived in Perth Fishingboat Harbour was all about the America's Cup, with plaques set around the enclave recalling where teams and boats were based during the long weeks of fierce sailing competition after Australia II's famous victory four years earlier.
But it seems the locals are embracing a slice of history from a little further back, those long-ago days when the state's newest residents worked on building a seafood industry in this multicultural settlement by the Indian Ocean.
There are a couple of statues standing right beside the water, where the men would carry baskets of fish onto the pier from boats just arrived with the latest catch, and a long wall listing the names of all the workers who spilt blood, sweat and tears building an life in Freo.
The America's Cup is important to this village, but the early years of settlement and the fishing industry are just as important, and it's nice to stand on the wharf reading the names while enjoying a scoop of gelati.
