Albany - Brig Amity and Dog Rock

Saturday afternoon, we went to the Western Australia Museum and toured the Brig Amity, a replica of the ship that brought the first settlers of WA to Albany.  We were surprised how many people and animals they fit on this relatively small ship for their 6 weeks journey from Sydney.

where they kept the animals 

(taken before we left to drive back to Perth on Monday)

Diorama at the museum that the kids could sculpt some play dough and add to it.

Not happy about being in the foot stocks.

Really unhappy with these stocks!

Dog Rock - doesn't it look like a spaniel?  Legend has it that this granite boulder appeared after the grave of a pet spaniel washed away in a storm.

In this version the origin and the name of the rock date from 1840.
At the time a settler named John Silverthorne lived with his family in an isolated cabin on Mount Clarence. The mail ship only visited Albany twice a year when the few settlers would rush to collect the mail and socialise with the ship’s crew. Silverthorne and his Wife went to meet an arriving ship leaving their three-year-old daughter, Betty, asleep, guarded by her spaniel, Victor. When the parents returned they found their daughter surrounded by natives, who yelled and ran towards her. The dog snapped ferociously at the aborigines who reacted by throwing spears at it but not at the child. The Silverthorne’s buried the dog on the western slope of Mount Clarence but a wild Storm in the night washed the grave away. The following day the granite boulder, in the shape of a spaniel’s head, mysteriously appeared.