Fremantle Shipwrecks museum
After our sculpture stroll along Bathers beach we walked into one of Australia's ripper Museum, the WA Shipwrecks museum which is located in Fremantle.
The is yours truly's most loved museum as it's full of stuff on old sailing ships, which went ass-over-tit on WA reefs.
Chase n' Oscar showing us a 'Two-pounder' cast Iron cannon which was raised up out of the Indian ocean one hundred years after seeing the sun. It was on the Fairy Queen which sunk back in 1875, near the North west cape of Exmouth.
Harrison showing us a model of the Roebuck 1689-1671
Chase showing us the conservation and restoration of the SS Xantho 1872 steam engine, it is the only known example of a 'Crimean War Gunboat engine'. And the amazing thing is that after one hundred years under water, and years of reconstruction it actually still WORKS!
Here's Oscar with a Diving-helmet which was found on the SS Macedon 1883, which was wrecked on Rottnest Island.
A model of the Eendracht
That was captained by Dirk Hartog when he made the second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, way back in 1616.
This model was of the Duyfken In early 1606, Captain Janszoon encountered and then charted the shores of Australia's Cape York Peninsula. The ship made landfall at the Pennefather River in the Gulf of Carpentaria. This was the first authenticated landing on Australian soil and for the first time all the inhabited continents of the world were known to the European science of geography. Janszoon is thus credited with the first authenticated European discovery of Australia.
This cannon was raised from the Trail which was wrecked on the Tryal Rocks off the north-west coast of Western Australia in 1622, it is Australia's oldest known shipwreck.
Here is the Batavia exhibition which is the centrepiece of the museum, and the story of the Batavia is one of the most saddest parts of Australia's history. Here are the kiddies on the elevated viewing deck looking down upon the stern of the Batavia, so you can appreciate the size and scope of the wreck.
Under commandeur Francisco Pelsaert, and Ariaen Jacobsz skipper, newly-built Batavia sailed from Texel 1628 for the Dutch East Indies with bullion, goods and silver. On 4 June 1629 the ship struck a reef near Beacon Island in the Houtman Abrolhos. Of the 322 aboard 40 drowned and the rest got ashore. In search of water and food Jacobsz, Pelsaert and others left site in a 30-foot (9.1 m) longboat and sailed for Batavia, now known as Jakarta. Soon after their arrival in Batavia Pelsaert was sent to recover the bullion and to rescue the survivors. In his absence a murderous mutiny occurred led by Jeronimus Cornelisz. In the end, after the mutiny was all over and all the mutineers had been executed, out of 322 people aboard the Batavia, only 116 survived.
After an extensive treatment and restoration process, the remains of the ship’s stern were rebuilt in this gallery.
The impressive portico façade – carried as cargo to be used as a grand entrance to the city of Batavia, the divers discovered the sandstone blocks in the ships hull, they were being used as ballast.
A cannon raised from the Batavia.
The skeleton remains of one of the people murdered on the Abrolhos Islands
, now that is so cool by the way if your wondering why the photos are so dark, it's because the museum is darken to keep the shipwreck parts from drying out.
