A couple of weeks ago I went to Sydney to see a couple of photographic exhibitions, one of works by the South-African photographer David Goldblatt, and the other looking at commercial street-photography in Sydney in the mid-20th century. The second exhibition was at the Museum of Sydney, and of course it has permanent exhibits as well as temporary exhibitions. One of this is a set of models of the
First Fleet, the eleven ships that delivered the first penal settlement to Australia. The day they stopped arsing around trying to find an anchorage and actually landed properly is, for reasons that are not very clear, celebrated by some here as Australia Day, and we have an end of January public holiday which fortuitously coincides with it.
Anyway, I got a some pictures of the models, which I thought might be of interest. The fleet was made up of eleven vessels - nine transport and two warships. I got a few pictures of the two warships, and the labels for them, and then a few of the transports. The biggest difference appears to be in the bows, with the warships having sleeker lines. I didn't get as far as finding out if the models were all to the same scale. Sorry.
Anyway, here's the pictures. Enjoy them, and Happy End Of January Public Holiday to my fellow-Australians.
I was living in Sydney when the 200th anniversary of that landing came around. I, and a bunch of Aussies, flew to Beijing for a week to avoid the celebrations. Natural born party poopers I guess.
ReplyDeleteI can remember going to an exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London about it at the same time. No parties though :)
DeleteQuite splendid. I never did have time to see that museum, but we did see the real ships (and sub) at the maritime museum.
ReplyDeleteTruth to tell I wasn't that excited with it as a museum. The ships were good, and so was the exhibition I went to see (which is only temporary). I guess the rest might be interesting if you're keen to learn Sydney's history in a one-stop shop. There was an interesting display about the geometry of the sails on the Sydney Opera House though.
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