Bad Hair Day, Shack Attack, Oh Susannah - March 21

It was very rainy this morning so we went to QVB to get haircuts. Ken's haircut was awful. I could have done it better with a rusty pair of kindergarten scissors. There's nothing to do but wait until it grows out.

We wanted to go to the Australian National Maritime Museum. It would have been a nice walk, but it was pouring, so we figured out how to take a train to the light rail line and then take that to the museum. Part of the light rail line was closed due to flooding on the tracks, but it did not affect our trip.

The Maritime Museum was in a very large building, but it didn't take all that long to go through.

There is a permanent exhibit on Shackleton, and that is what we really came to see. It was interesting and well presented, but I would have liked something a little more interactive. You can only read so many story boards. 

The Shackleton story is so compelling. In December 1914 Shackleton attempted to be the first to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. His expedition included explorers, scientists, and sled dogs.

Their ship, the Endurance, got stuck in the ice and endured the most difficult conditions.

The crew members camped on the ice and lived on minimal rations. They were finally rescued in August of 1916 after a heroic 720-mile trip in a small open boat by Shackleton and 5 of his men. The6 men sailed to South Georgia Island and then made a 32-mile trek across mountainous terrain to reach a whaling station where they could get help.

It stopped raining so we took the ferry back to Circular Quay. It was a beautiful trip. We passed under the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Next we walked over to an area called The Rocks. It was one of the first parts of Sydney to be settled by Europeans. It eventually became a slum, but now, of course, it has been gentrified and it is filled with cafes and high-end shops.

Our destination was the Susannah Place Museum, where we had a reservation for a guided tour.

The Susannah Place Museum is another one of Sydney's living museums. Once again, the museum is the building itself. In this case the building is a former tenement consisting of four "terrace houses." Our guide, Jo, led a small group of us through various rooms as she told us the stories of the ordinary people who lived here from 1844 to the late 1900's. The museum has done a tremendous job collecting information about the former residents of this building - names, photos, where they came from, where they went, what furnishings they had. In some cases they were able to interview people who had lived there as children. These details really made the museum come alive.

This is how the occupants fixed the door when the house settled.

This is the back yard. Archeologists determined that it had been enlarged a few times. Yes, it was an encroachment into the back alley.

Jo shows us a "gazunda." It "goes under" the bed.