History Tour 2

Sunday, 28th March 2010

Today Wardlis 2 and 4 went on another history tour with Moff. We were once again in the bus, this time our first destination was a small museum in Warooka. Before we got in Moff first talked to us about unplanned towns and their layout. An unplanned town was usually started when a man set up a store beside an intersection selling basic things like food to locals. The next step was usually a pub being established on the other side of the intersection. Another key indicator is roads all coming together in one not very straight intersection.

We then went into the museum. The first room was a mock trooper station. Troopers were the local law enforcement back in the 1800's. More soldier than police officer they were trained in use of brutal force and were often armed with either batons, pistols or sabres. The main role of a Trooper was to bring down troublemakers, and they were deadly in a fight. Sometimes, to quell large uprising, a squad of mounted Troopers would be called in. Because they were on horseback they couldn't use pistols so they used long swards called sabres. They would line up and all draw their swords at once, the sound of the metal sabre coming out of it's sheath would ring. They would charge and aim their sabres at the enemies' necks. There weren't many troopers in a local area, only in times of uprising or in the pursuit of a dangerous criminal would more be brought in.

The next interesting topic we talked about was the Last Sharge of the Australian Light Horse. During World War I, many Australians from the country who were both strong and could ride horse were recruited into the Australian Light Horse and sent over to Egypt to fight to Turks. The Turkish had a large garrison of men and artillery in the town of Bersheeba and the Australians had been marching/riding through the desert for days without water. They were given the order to charge the town in a last ditch effort to take it. They began the charge a bout 3 miles away from the town and had to charge the whole way without cover. They attached their bayonets, mounted their horses and began the charge. The Turkish were expecting them to dismount and continue on foot as they had done in the past. But the Australians just kept charging. Eventually the Turkish understood what was happening and began their bombardment with the artillery. But the horsemen were galloping so fast that most shots went over thor heads, they eventually reached the trenches, engaged the infantry, disabled the asrtillery and had the town under control in only half an hour. Only around 30 men were lost. After the war was over, the men were sent home, but the horses couldn't come. The soldiers were faced with a heart breaking decision, leave their horses to a life under cruel mastery by locals, or walk them into the desert and kill them, most chose the latter.

The rest of the museum were rooms representing other parts of day-to-day life back in the 1800's. There was a room full of old medicine, food and tobacco containers. Many people chewed and smoked tobacco back in those days, but not the women becasue it was considered "slutty". In another room we found an old tin of milo and mortein fly spray. Out the back there was an old bathtub. Families used to have baths once a week in a certain order; mum, dad and then children in order of age from oldest to youngest, so the yougest got the dirtiest, coldest water. Out the back there was a shed full of old farm equipment. There was an old Fordson tractor which was in pretty good condition and an old peice of equipment to pull the heads of grain apart. Farms in the old days relied a lot more on man-power than they do today.