Trip report: Day 4, All gone

This one should be short.

I started the morning by walking up along the river, to the beach.

That's back the way I've just walked. There's the ferry, on the left, the light from the squirrel photos on the right in front of a big yellow building, the cement silos in front of Endeavour are almost in the middle. You can't quite see the black masts in the smaller photo. The city centre such as it is, is beyound and to the right of the yellow building.



It's a longer walk than I thought, but it's nice though.



This was a bit weird. I thought the seagull had happened to land near the galahs, but as the flock moved away from me, the seagull stayed with them. Wether it's a seagull with an identity problem or it was going for safety in numbers, I don't know.



That's the Bluff, with the lighthouse. The beach is into the left a bit.



There's the beach, beyond the stretch of black rock. It's quite a nice beach, if rather busy. There a surf lifesaving club based there and you're supposed to swim between the flags. At least, there used to be. Beens years since I've gone there.

Not today though. I had two hours to fill in. The plan was to walk up along the coast for almost an hour, then walk back.

Devonport, in the middle part, is laid out in a grid and I had to be back to a point that was roughly south-easterly of the beach area. So if I headed back that way through the streets, I'd back in plenty of time.

There's a street headed in the right direction, probably the only diagonal street in that part of the city.


Haven't I seen them before, like 3 days ago in Launceston?



At the end of the this street, I walked for a few more blocks and got to William St, which I'd walked up the week before so I knew it ran north-south and at which point I'd have to change direction to get to the right place. But, at this point it should have been running parallel to the street I was on, not across it. Problem. Maybe it turned at some point. I walked along it and ended up heading towards where I'd started. A bit of a worry. I back tracked to the point where I'd deviated from my course and started walking what I thought was the right way. Maybe. I'd got turned around somewhere. All around were houses, some quite new so maybe I was walking towards the edge of the city, rather than the middle. There was a hill ahead. I know there was a hill further south that I'd walked up the week before, but that was much further to the south. Most likely I was walking west. No indicators of where I was. Although I saw a bus turn the corner at one point. A bus stop might help, except there were none along this road :( It was overcast too, so it was hard to find the sun. It's over there, almost directly to my left. Hmm. It's 9.30 am, the sun should be in the east. If I'm walking south, then the sun would be on my left. Ha. If I'd stuck with my original route, I would have been right. I head left/east a bit and hit William St again, and this time it's running in the right direction. A couple of blocks further down and I'm in the area I know.

I get back to the wharf just on 10 am.

It's a morning tea to say farewell & thank you to the volunteers.



A rather nice morning tea too. Some of the Endeavour's crew in blue & the captain in white.

We talked and ate, and the some of us went back on the ship to help pack up.

Just I get to that, this is something you won't usually see. It's removed so visitors don't trip over it.



For steering, the rope runs from the barrel of the wheel



to the tiller.



All the museum stuff is packed away when they leave port, and unpacked at the next destination. At sea, the cabins are used by supernumeraries (paying passengers) so they have to be set up too. There's a few hours work in that.

It was interesting though, because when you're looking over the displays, you miss a lot of the details.



Like the metalwork on this desk. It's not something you'd consciously notice if you looked into the cabin, but it adds to the atmosphere. It's like world building for a novel. Even if the reader/viewer doesn't notice all the details, together they create the illusion that this setting is real. How can it not be?

Also, as I said quite often about the officer's cabins, every time you look at a display, you see something you missed. When you're packing one up though, you notice everything.



This woollen coat is lovely. According to the guide book, it's copied from one owned by Parkinson, one of the artists.

Once I'd done packing up Green's cabin, I went down to the midimates mess and packed the master's cabin. I do like them dominoes. What isn't fun though, folding up sheets without them dragging on the floor, when you can't stand up.

With the cabins pretty much done, I went out to the mess deck and helped clear the table. It's just Mark & me & Diana left of the volunteers now. The crew are happy to have us helping. One of the quickest pack up they've had.

For lunch we had left overs from morning tea.

The final thing to do was the hammocks.



That's Diana, who is a very lovely person by the way, folding one up. She told me what to do -- like them out, put the ropes here and then do this and that, and I wasn't really paying attention. I laid them out and let her fold them. Once the hammocks over the tables were done, we did the ones in the marines' area, in where it's low. That;s where I caught my foot on an anchor lashed to the side, startled myself and then rammed my knee down on the seam along the edge of the deck. Ouch. Although other than the initial bang, it didn't hurt much. It wasn't until I was lugging my bag back to the bus that it started to hurt. It got better though. Same knee that kept getting bashed when I was playing hockey too.

After the hammocks were done, and more goodbyes said, it was time to leave.

From this



to this



It was a wonderful 3 days. Friendly guides, friendly crew, friendly visitors. Apparently one visitor had just come back from a trip to England and he'd gone over Victory. He thought we did a better job.

Words and photos are all very well, but if you get a chance to visit HMB Endeavour replica, and they're aiming to get to as many ports in Australia as possible, go and have a look over her. And if you're able to spend a couple of days as a guide, that's definitely worthwhile :)