Early this week, after our weekly shopping trip to Georgetown, we went to the Watch-house Museum in Macquarie St.
There, while there we watched a sobering documentary on convict period infant mortality and a project to recognize the plight of the inmates at the Female Factories, both in Georgetown and Hobart. Imagine our surprise when we saw South Hobart Primary School uniforms on the kids being interviewed, making bonnets for the recognition project. The boys were most excited to recognize their school friends!
They have a fantastic model of the township from its colonial times, and the guide gives a very interesting talk on the towns history. You can read a lot of it here.
Here’s a photo of a house from the model:
…and here’s the same house today, 200 years later:
From there, we went to the Bass & Flinders Museum, and it was awesome!
They have the NORFOLK in there, whole, and fully rigged. A 34ft, 25 tonne gaff sloop!
We enjoyed reading some excerpts from the log of Bass and Flinders, as they explored the Tamar, like this passage:
“After advancing three miles, we approached a low, green
island, lying nearly in mid-channel; and being uncertain which was the deepest side, I took the most direct, which lay to the west. From 8
fathoms, the next cast of the lead was 31/2, and immediately the sloop was
aground.”
See! Other people run aground here! Even famous mariners!