A delightful little museum on the Copper Coast.
I loved my visit to this little museum, it had such a country museum feel to it. The museum is a National Trust property (so free entry if you're a National Trust member!) and run by volunteers. It was established in 1975 and not a lot has changed inside, which is part of the appeal for me. Even the information cards are the original 1970s cards done on a typewriter. The Heritage part of the museum is in this building which had been the Wallaroo Post Office and then the Police Station until 1975 when the building was turned over to the National Trust. You just wander in and out of the rooms seeing all the different displays of heritage and antique items.
The building still has the original post office window counter where the locals could collect their mail and send telegrams. It was a post office from 1865 to 1910.
The room the other side of those windows has a display of all things postal, stamps, scales, mailbag, all in an old display case on an old desk.
Mail sorting boxes for the addresses in town.
A Morse Code set for the sending of telegrams, with some examples of telegrams on the right.
A selection of old telephones, the one on the end is quite ornate!
Absolutely loved this old cash register, it was built to last! Used in one of the stores in the town and donated to the museum. People's maths skills were better then as Pounds, shillings and pence were used and you couldn't add and subtract in base 10. Decimal currency (dollars) was introduced in 1966 and totally up your shopping was so much easier!
An old wheelchair, which I'd only seen in movies, the person in the chair could make it move by pushing the handles on the side backwards and forwards.
Next to the Heritage Museum is another building which is the nautical part of the museum. It was purpose built to house displays so not as interesting a building, but more spacious.
Bunk beds from an old tug.
George the Giant Squid. He was found in the stomach of a whale caught (and killed) in 1974 in Western Australia and was donated to the museum in 1989. He's a deep sea dwelling squid and is preserved in formalin, he's 8.5m long when his tentacles are stretched out.
Model of the Wallaroo jetty during the time that copper ore was smeltered in Wallaroo and then shipped elsewhere.
A Wallaroo resident make these detailed models and they were then donated to the museum. The bike that's hanging was used to deliver mail.
Outside the museum is the 1877 Tipara lighthouse, it was moved here when it was no longer in use.
The Copper Coast towns all have their historic museums, I liked them all. The Wallaroo museum just had an extra layer of charm in the way that it was an old style museum, not updated to appeal to modern tastes (and often short attention spans!)
I loved my visit to this little museum, it had such a country museum feel to it. The museum is a National Trust property (so free entry if you're a National Trust member!) and run by volunteers. It was established in 1975 and not a lot has changed inside, which is part of the appeal for me. Even the information cards are the original 1970s cards done on a typewriter. The Heritage part of the museum is in this building which had been the Wallaroo Post Office and then the Police Station until 1975 when the building was turned over to the National Trust. You just wander in and out of the rooms seeing all the different displays of heritage and antique items.
The building still has the original post office window counter where the locals could collect their mail and send telegrams. It was a post office from 1865 to 1910.
A Morse Code set for the sending of telegrams, with some examples of telegrams on the right.
Next to the Heritage Museum is another building which is the nautical part of the museum. It was purpose built to house displays so not as interesting a building, but more spacious.
The Copper Coast towns all have their historic museums, I liked them all. The Wallaroo museum just had an extra layer of charm in the way that it was an old style museum, not updated to appeal to modern tastes (and often short attention spans!)
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