Yesteryear

One thing we have learned on our travels is that Australia is full of bizarre oddities that crazy people will gladly part money with to see. Those crazy people include Daph and Ern.

We paid fifteen dollars each for the Golden Ticket to get us into all the attractions at Wave Rock... the Yesteryear Museum, the Miniature Soldier Museum, the Lace Museum, and the Wildlife Park.

We perused the bizarre random collections of things that are apparently deemed interesting. Though we did find some stuff of interest, it was mostly a mishmash of old things stacked randomly around several premises. Daph got more and more confused as we went on.

Daph: “What’s occurring here?”[1]

The miniature soldier museum has the largest collection of toy soldiers in the Southern Hemisphere, albeit just stacked on a table in the middle of a room, and not in detailed battle scenes as Daph had expected. It also had a collection of old televisions, VHS tapes, old gramophones, and taxidermy. Just because.

We could have entered for free because there was not a soul to be seen anywhere at any of the museums or the wildlife park, which was the saddest place ever. A run-down collection of enclosures made from all manner of bits and bobs, home to depressed and mentally disturbed birds and animals that looked a tad worse for wear.

Daph’s heart was breaking to see these beautiful creatures caged up and going stir-crazy. The bald cockatoo was the icing on the cake. Daph couldn’t understand why they had galahs and cockatoos in cages when you can drive five minutes up the road and see them in the wild. Ern suggested they might all be rescued animals that wouldn’t survive in the wild, which made sense when we saw the one-winged eagle. It was still a sorry sight.

The birds all squawked wildly as if to say, “Help us!” as we walked around. Daph considered going on a rampage to release all the animals into the wild... “Be free, my one-winged friends,” but Ern didn’t want Daph’s incarceration to delay our onward trip any more than it’s already been delayed. The highlights were almost being attacked by an emu and getting to give the camel a much-needed dose of loving.

Back to Esperance for the night before we hit the Nullarbor again tomorrow. Ern is still a tad nervous, not fully trusting in the old girl. Daph puts her fingers in the Kombi’s ears and tells her not to listen to Ern because he does love her, really.

[1] “What’s occurring here?” is a quote from the UK comedy show “Gavin and Stacey” and was part of our regular vocabulary. Do yourself a favour and check it out. Classic comedy at its best.