Sunday 17^th June

Today we hopped on the bikes again and visited the Dunera Musem located only a very short ride away from where we are staying.

This museum gives the visitor a comprehensive background to the internment camp built during World War II for over 2500 German and Austrian internees from Britain, who were mostly Jewish refugees from Nazi occupied Europe.  They arrived in Australia on the HMT (Hired Military Transport) Dunera, and the name “Dunera Boys” was coined for this group of internees.  It turns out there were many professional men amongst this group, some being chefs from top European hotels and others tailors and engineers.

In their first year they were responsible for establishing a flourishing market garden which supplied the prison camp as well as the residents in Hay and further afield.

The prison issued its own currency to the inmates in the form of tokens, as it was believed that actual money could aid escape attempts. The Department of Army issued five tokens, being the five shilling, two shilling, one shilling, threepence and penny. In today’s parlance (if my conversion serves me correctly) this would be 50c 20c 10c 2c and 1c.  Each day an audit of these coins was taken for security purposes.  At the end of the war the tokens were collected and melted down. In a display cabinet were some tiny carved shoes which an Italian internee had made - they would have been only about 2.5 cm long, so dainty and intricate.  Among other artifacts in the cabinet were wooden boxes with inlaid initials for loved ones. 

As this museum is set in some converted and beautifully renovated railway carriages at the rear of the Hay railway station it seemed only right to take a photo of this station which was closed in 1989 and now is home to local community groups.

 A longer ride then took us to the “Shear Outback” a contemporary interpretive museum and shearing shed.  Here we enjoyed a lovely lunch before taking the next three hours to gain insights into the Australian shearing industry, from the shearers cook, the smells presented in the sheds, the significant industrial changes the unions achieved and life for the shearing fraternity today.  

A sheep shearing demonstration completed our trip – well not quite as I got my second flat tyre in 2 days, so that completed it!!  Bob tells me that he will change the next tyre blindfolded – I think I should time him as well, or perhaps learn to do it myself.