Tuesday 24th May 2005
Although we experienced some light showers of rain early last night,
today started out with a little cloud cover, however by about 10:am
the sky was blue and it was quite warm.
We took our time to get ready for our visit to the Swan Hill Pioneer
Museum, walking out of the caravan park at about 10:30 a.m. and entering
the museum and Pioneer Village about 5 to 10 minutes later. This Village
depicts the early Pioneer days of the Mallee Region of Victoria and
has a great number of buildings that genuinely appear to be from that
era. Most of them do not have the spit and polish of something that
has been constructed recently to make it look old, many really look
like they were built over 100 years ago and are still standing. It appears
that some of them were in fact moved from other parts of the Mallee
Region to the Swan Hill Pioneer Village and can boast a very long life.
We started by visiting the paddle steamer that was once the entry to
the Pioneer Village and also the steam train near the entrance before
entering the aboriginal display which although not very large did provide
an insight into the aboriginal living conditions at the time of the
European settlement in the Mallee region.
It was then time to take a stroll down the main street of the village
during which time when we entered a number of the buildings, including
a post office, photographic parlour and many others before we wandered
through some buildings that were constructed like they would have been
when the very early settlers originally came to the Mallee Region. One
unique feature of these houses or perhaps more correctly called huts
was the fences around some of them as they were built out on mallee
tree roots because when they cleared the country there would have been
literally thousands of these tree stumps to get rid of.
Another rather unique construction was a windmill made out of the fork
of a mallee tree and some other timber, with th fan blades being made
out of corrugated iron. Apparently this was a genuine windmill made
by one of the early settlers and eventually moved to the Pioneer Village
in the1960s. Next we wandered passed some sheds that housed a huge variety
of old tractors, from some steam powered machines through to some built
in the 1920s and 1930s. it can make one feel quite old when one of the
tractors was a McCormack which we had on our farm and I remember driving
when I was very young (that was quite a long time ago!).
We then strolled back through the Main Street, calling into the general
store which is really more like the lolly shop that our daughter Kym
remembers from her visit in about 1983 on a Girl Guide trip. We did
purchase a jar of acid drops for Kym's old time sake, however 'One of
Us' has already opened the jar and consumed a number of them, sorry
Kym I don't think they will get home. we then visited the old-time theatre
hall that houses one of the only two Stereoscopic Theatres left in the
world. this is a circular construction with seats around the outside
and viewing eye holes a little like binoculars and when viewing through
them, the images on the inside keep changing. These images photograph
imprints on glass depicting scenes from around the world.
We also visited the chemist shop and the dentist (fortunately our teeth
are ok!) Before we took a spin around the whole village in an old Dodge
car driven by an old gentleman who gave us a bit of a rundown on the
village and the area. At this time one of us realized it was after one
o'clock and she had not had her lunch so our next call was to the cafe
at the entrance to the village. 'One of Us' enjoyed fish and chips and
salad followed by a large slice of cheesecake, all washed down with
a glass of wine, the 'Other One' had a Ploughman's lunch followed by
a rather large plate of fresh fruit and ice cream, all of this assisted
by a glass of local Swan Hill beer.
After all this exercise and the abundance of food it was a unanimous
decision to return to the caravan for the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately
the paddle steamer was not operating today so we missed out on that
little experience, however we are returning at 8 p.m. tonight for the
the light and sound show.