In 1894 the ferry was finally abandoned in favour of a 600 feet wooden bridge adjacent to old ferry jetties, which was built by contract at a cost of £1700.
Each May, a weatherproof ceiling must be installed above the courtyard, and costumes, props, set pieces and 2,260 audience seats must be ferried to a jetty behind the castle.
The ferry clangs to the jetty where I am met by Lars Sunekvist, a big man with a bigger smile, who drives me in a dusty golf cart to the island's only hotel, Grinda Wardshus.
To the west are Kings Park (1) and the suburb of Fremantle, while South Perth is beyond the mighty Swan River, but just five minutes by ferry from Barrack Street Jetty (3).
Burnham-on-Sea railway station was the terminus of the Burnham branch of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, but the tracks continued onto the jetty, where ferry services to South Wales could be boarded.
The owners can help with car hire but it's a five-minute walk to a bus stop – which will take you to Praslin's most famous beach Anse Lazio and the Unesco-protected Vallée de Mai nature reserve – and the jetty for ferries to Mahé and La Digue.
"When a ferry from Miyake approached the jetty in Tokyo, I caught the whiff of Tokyo".
WHAT TO DO Tanned ferry captains wait by the jetty to run you across to Isola San Giulio, where a pedestrian path loops around the Benedictine monastery.
The noises come from the lawn down the hill, between the main white building and the jetty where the ferry docks.
Now they're making the most of reconnection with the world: colourfully dressed men, women and children pour off the free ferry at Pungudutivu's Karaikattuvan jetty, ready to hit Jaffna.
