Tuesday, 6th July
A little improvement in the weather today, after rain yesterday evening – it is hotter and the humidity dropped a couple of percent for a short time. This is supposed to be the dry season!
We had a quiet morning close to the caravan (and amenities block) this morning, before venturing out for an hour and a half after lunch to visit the Fannie Bay Gaol. This was a very interesting experience and it wasn’t at all hard to imagine the conditions that the prisoners had to endure. The original cell block was constructed of stone (definitely no fat prisoners here if the size of the doors are anything to go by!) and the others are just good old tin sheds! There was some damage suffered during Cyclone Tracy (mainly roofs disappearing) but most of the establishment survived. The Infirmary contained the gallows which were specially constructed in 1952 to hang two prisoners – one must wonder why they needed a drop of 4 metres below the trapdoor? Amazingly, or perhaps not, a copy of a prisoner’s record showed it to be very similar to the convict records of the 19th Century!
A little improvement in the weather today, after rain yesterday evening – it is hotter and the humidity dropped a couple of percent for a short time. This is supposed to be the dry season!
We had a quiet morning close to the caravan (and amenities block) this morning, before venturing out for an hour and a half after lunch to visit the Fannie Bay Gaol. This was a very interesting experience and it wasn’t at all hard to imagine the conditions that the prisoners had to endure. The original cell block was constructed of stone (definitely no fat prisoners here if the size of the doors are anything to go by!) and the others are just good old tin sheds! There was some damage suffered during Cyclone Tracy (mainly roofs disappearing) but most of the establishment survived. The Infirmary contained the gallows which were specially constructed in 1952 to hang two prisoners – one must wonder why they needed a drop of 4 metres below the trapdoor? Amazingly, or perhaps not, a copy of a prisoner’s record showed it to be very similar to the convict records of the 19th Century!
1 comment:
Dont feel too sorry for the prisoners and what they had to endure, they probably deserved it. I would like to see a return to some of those conditions.
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