We spent Saturday quietly about the camp, waiting for the terrible weather to arrive and pass by, not wanting to venture out somewhere special only to have it spoiled. A few light showers passed over, and a few wilder squalls, but nothing that would have lessened our enjoyment of exploration of Port Adelaide. But there you are! Perhaps one should simply disregard all weather reports and venture forth no matter what. But then at about five, the storm came and dumped a fair bit of water amid thunder storms. Later we heard on the news that there had been flash flooding in other parts of the city and thought we had done quite well to avoid the worst, and then after we retired for the night, the storm returned with force.
We woke yesterday morning none the worse for wear but the skies were still grey, promising little more than yesterday. Buoyed by the internet forecast, we set out with our lunch packed in the eski, heading initially for the Westfield at Marion to source a USB to record TV programmes, having figured how to do so without the aid of any instruction manual. We succeeded in that endeavour but when we emerged from the very busy shopping centre, the rain looked set in for the day and so we decided to cancel our outing and return to the caravan to see the weather out.
Alas, on our return, we found that the memory stick would not fit the gap and so after lunch we returned to JB HiFi for another that would. Their service was excellent, amid dealing with the Christmas shopping masses, and we decided that the profit downgrade read about in the business pages of the newspaper was unlikely to prove correct given the level of trade observed today.
And so we spent a second day, having done little but wandered through urban malls, engaged in otherwise sedentary tasks.
This morning we woke to clear skies and no hint of bad weather so were off out before anything or anyone could discourage us. It is not very far in a straight line north to Port Adelaide, but the busy city streets intersect the roads that take us there, and so it was not until 10.30 am that we had found a car park. The streets on the river edge of the city are full of beautiful old stone heritage listed buildings which we admired and photographed as we walked about, directed by the brochure that details each one. We also visited the South Australia Maritime Museum, one of the must-dos on our list for Adelaide and spent over an hour and a half there. It is an excellent museum, but much of the exhibits duplicated information and displays we had encountered at the Museum of South Australia or the Discovery Centre at Glenalg. That is not to say we did not enjoy it; on the contrary, we did so very much but would not necessarily say it should be on everyone’s list of must-dos.
The museum was established way back in 1872, begun as a general museum and part of the Institute. These Institutes provided the first libraries and adult learning centres right throughout Australia and as we travel about, I am learning more about these and understanding the part my great great great uncle Joseph Bevege played in this process merely by being the librarian in the Mechanic’s Institute in Maitland, New South Wales. These immigrants, my ancestors among them, were obviously hungry for education and understood the need for this to progress and succeed in this new land of opportunity.
Here there is a full size replica of a ketch, one of the Mosquito Fleet, (so called because they buzzed about) that plied the waters around this part of Australia, and as always when one boards these vessels of the past, it is rather terrifying to consider how life and work on these very small ships must have been once they left the safety of the wharves. But then, I am a landlubber who does not like confined spaces, so hardly the right person to be commenting on such matters.
Interestingly the original ship, the Active, which was built in 1873, came to grief in 1889 when it collided with another ship, and was crushed and sunk. It was rebuilt and resumed work along the South Australian and interstate coast until 1959, when it was proclaimed derelict and demolished. The replica, now in the museum, was built in 1985.
We were both surprised that these sail powered craft plied the seas right up until 1982! Who would have thought that, when steam and fuel driven ships had been around for 130 years or so.
A large section of the museum is entirely given over to the history of shipwrecks, there being at least 850 along the South Australian coast. These are heart wrenching stories and while I have often considered the tragedy of those who did not make it to Australia, there were also reports of exports of grain and the like which never got beyond the Australian waters, thus a huge waste of labour and effort on the part of the settlors who did make it here.
There was also an excellent display of the ship berths of immigrants to these lands covering the early to mid-19th century, then those who came immediately after the First and Second World Wars, along with diaries and letters, some in audio form, to relay to us moderns how hideous the experience of our forebears was.
We lunched on a bench on the wharf, alone except for some very disinterested seagulls, finished our walking tour and then headed back home through the traffic. The weather had held out all day and our immediate neighbours in the park have been replaced by others. I have yet to discover whether they too have a dog. The kelpie who was in residence there before was so good whenever its owners left it all alone, for long hours in the day, tied up and sheltering under the caravan – poor thing. But when they were there, she became so excited, she forgot her good behaviour rules. Dogs should not be allowed, least of all in National Parks! Grumpy old people that we are!
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