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Cheers guys,
I still have so much passion for my work even when i was laid up with sciatica last year. All i was thinking about was not being able to finish the woolshed.
Over the years a lot of my work has been doing salt damp repair so weeks and weeks on my knees so a job like this is a real change.
The picture is from about 1870s of the indigenous shearers who also helped to build the woolshed about 15 years before.
350+ tonnes of ironstone was shifted 11 kms to build this shed.
These guys were the main workforce around when the squatters moved in. The aboriginal women and children used to round up the sheep though the lake to wash the sheep before shearing.
Before this photo was taken a group of indigenous cricketers were taken on tour (1868) around England to become Australias first 11.
They were born and worked on these properties around the area.
By the end the 1870s there were only a handful of aborigines left after being pushed of their lands and into missions, and by 1890 there were none.
All these sheds around SE Australia were supposed to be built by the Chinese on the way to the goldfields from landing at Robe.
The ships landed at Robe in 1857 and they were on a 4 to 5 week mission to get to goldfields not a 6 to 7 year wait to then start some stone woolsheds!!!
A lot nicer story than use free aboriginal labour and then systematicly force them off the land.
Some of the stories I've uncovered are so brutal that its actually genocide.
History is still getting rewritten.
Cheers
Andy
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