Australia Adventures #10

For the final adventure we had, we went to the Western Australia Maritime Museum.  We opted for the museum and sub tour..  We would have went with just the sub tour had we realized the museum wasn't that great.  It had some interesting stuff, but nothing that I was so enamored with that if I had to choose again, I wouldn't redo it.  The most interesting thing was actually the child migration exhibit, when I wasn't interested in at first, then I realized what it actually was and it became very interesting, very quickly.

I wasn't interested at first because I didn't realize what child migration actually was.  It is a thing.  A real thing that the Brits did.  Sometimes I look at slavery and think, that's not so bad considering what the Brits did back in the day...  I mean, I'm not condoning slavery, but child migration?!

What is child migration?  If you are too lazy to click that:  its the migration of children, without their parents, to another country or region.  In many cases this has involved the forced migration of children in care, to be used as child labour.

This happened also took place in the US, but on a WAY smaller scale than in the UK/Australia.  This was a way to ease overpopulation and labor issues.  By sending the children to other places, the overpopulation was attempted to be controlled, and once the child arrived in their new destination, they could help with the labor shortage.  Sadly, many children that were migrants were treated poorly, to include being abused (not just labor abuse).

The exhibit was an eye-opener.  I didn't even know child migration was a thing.  Learn something new everyday.

After the exhibit it was HMAS Ovens (submarine) tour time.

Onto the photos:*

Fishing on the dock outside the museum.

Layout of the sub.

Yarrr matey!

3910s, what type of crane is this?? :)

If the sub wasn't going to resurface/was sinking, this was the outfit you'd wear to make it to the surface.

Torpedo tubes.  Also used to keep beers cold when not loaded.

Junior sailors racks.
One of the Aussies that was helping with the exercise actually had been stationed on the Ovens back in the day.
He told me which rack was his (after our tour), but I didn't get a photo of it.

The best place to have your name on the sub.

Menu

Where I would have lived pre-surgery.

Looking up into the sail.

Sooo many buttons.

Every Navy has acronyms.

Coxswain's got the helm.
Too bad we're going no where fast.

So much overwhelming stuffs here.

Where the intel comes from.

Where I would have done real work!!!
The back-in-the-day way..

Gotta love the morale boosters.

Officers quarters.

These are like the big man version of what is in gas masks.

"Made in England"

I feel like someone isn't taking care of the maintenance issues.

No wonder we weren't going anywhere!  :)

Anchor's aweigh!

The outside of the sub.

My travel companion decided he finally wanted to do some shopping, so we went back to the same store where the guy had told us about the prison.  Then we decided to do a little bit more walking around before figuring out dinner.

The biggest chocolate bunny I've ever seen.
This guy was probably 2 feet tall.

I don't know what this means, but it was graffiti-ed on a wall.

A cool lookin' house.

I wish I could tell my postman this!

All the doors had letter slots.  So much more awesome than a postbox.

*Please excuse some of the not so great photos. We weren't allowed to carry bags onto the sub due to space issues, so I left my camera bag in the car.. Not thinking that I'd need my flash. Teh Megan fail.

It finally started to get dark so we had to figure out dinner. The souvenirs guy had suggested a place, but we looked up their menu and saw their prices and decided maybe not. We ended up back at Little Creatures, since I really wanted more sticky toffee pudding before we departed. We ran into all our officers there, with all of the Aussies that we'd been working with (which is when we got to hear sea stories about being stationed on HMAS Ovens). They had been there a ridiculously long time. Long enough to eat lunch and then they ordered dinner while we were there. In true Australian style, they had been drinking for several hours.

I had magically finagled a day off for 2 of the 3 watch standers for the next day (including myself).  I spent that extra day off talking to Teh Bear and napping and doing laundry and packing in preparation for leaving the next day.  It was nice to be able to take a day for doing nothing since I had been going pretty much nonstop since a week prior to leaving for Australia.

Want to catch up on the Australia Adventures???1st day off in Australia (summary)
2nd day off in Australia (summary)
San Francisco (photos)
Perth Zoo a, b, c (photos)
The Indian Ocean and downtown Perth at night (photos)
Caversham Wildlife Park a, b, c (photos)
Fremantle Prison (photos)
walking around Fremantle (the city) (photos)
Perth from King's Park (photos)
HMAS Ovens (submarine) (photos)

a preview of what is coming up:
Sydney at night
Sydney in the morning (really excited about this one)

OMG?!?  Only 2 more?!?!?!?

Actually, thats a lie kinda.  I will do a panoramics post as well.