Pioneer Days, River Boats and Night Sounds

Trip Start Jun 22, 2007

Trip End Ongoing

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Australia Swan Hill, Australia
Friday, July 27, 2007

Today dawned nice and sunny, so we took the opportunity of nice weather and went to the Pioneer Settlement. This is a very professionally presented reconstruction of an early settlement. There is the Gem a paddlesteamer - landlocked now, but still floating on water and on Stage 6 of a 13 stage refurbishment project. As you walk through the settlement you pass all the old buildings you would expect to find in an old town, and this museum has volunteers working in some of the buildings. There were people in the music shop who demonstrated a variety of old time musical instruments and later on as we walked past again, there was a man outside playing the banjo and singing, accompanied by some of the ladies with tambourines, triangles and some home made percussion instruments.

It had the usual blacksmithy, printing shop, barbers, post office, drapers, theatre, school room, churches, village hall, fire station, engineers and a potter where a lady was conducting her pottery business and hand painting pottery whilst we were there

Mighty Murray

. Activities for kids too - they can paint in the pottery. An old stereoscopic theatre, a dentist surgery, a collection of beautifully restored tractors, even a river barge in dry dock were also there. There were a few examples of old style farm houses, dairy and a cooling cellar. We walked around looking at all the things to see, and had not finished by lunchtime (2 � hours), so we had lunch at the caf� and returned to complete the last row of shops. We took a ride in a vintage car and also a horse drawn cart before it was time to board the Pyap - a paddlewheeler (diesel powered) for a trip out of the Marraboor River into and up the Murray for a few kilometers. The boat trip took an hour, after which we left and return to the van.

At 6:30, we left again for the Sound and Light show at the Pioneer Museum, and this was well done - not as glitzy or stirring as at Sovereign Hill, but nicely done, accompanied by a narration at each stop, music and a good storyline explanation life in the old days. Leaving the museum at 8pm, we picked up a pizza and enjoyed that for dinner.