We had located a heritage walk route at the tourist information centre and following it turned out to be more of a challenge than expected. We did out best, but still failed to locate some of the spots. One was a pelican statue (which we assume has been moved since the walk notes were created), but we are pretty sure that the old ballroom must have been there, and the notes not clear enough to explain the look and location after multiple readings. Oh well.
We spent some time imagining what the bay must have looked like back in the old days, when the caravan park and tent city filled what is now a park area, and a swing bridge went from one side to the other.
We tried to walk down under the bridge to see the old original, but today the boardwalk is closed because of some works they are doing, so that was not to be.
We did locate the very retro garage building (now shops) which used to have all the latest vehicles, and the old tea rooms building.
The original church has been used in a much larger church which is still used today.
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| The old |
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| The new (attached to the old) |
There is also an old piece of wall still standing right next to the post office. This is the last remnant of a migrant barracks. It was built in 1880 to house Japanese fishermen (indentured workers) who supplied fish for the cannery.
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| Old wall of the migrant barracks |
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| Statue of Japanese fisherman. |
That's pretty much all that remains of the historic buildings in the centre of town.
As we went past we took a quick snap of a "bike sculpture" that we thought Kay might enjoy.
The tour ended up at the front of the local fish and chip shop, which we thought must be a sign, so we bought our lunch there, and sat down to eat from the paper the old fashioned way in the lovely park area which spreads out along the foreshore.
Shopping had to be done to prepare for the trip home, so we hit the local Woolies before checking the tyres and heading home to repack the car and do our tidying up.
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