A Trip to St Helena


G'day!


We are just back from a very interesting and exciting trip. We went to St Helena, the prison island, which used to be the Alcatraz of Brisbane. The island is no longer used as a prison. It is now a heritage centre. 


The journey across to the island took 15 minutes. It didn't look very far as we looked back to the shore and we wondered if the prisoners ever tried to escape by swimming away. Our guide told us that in the 1860's, when the prison was set up, very few people could swim. In order to discourage the prisoners from making rafts to get away, the guards would keep reminding the prisoners about the sharks that swim in these waters and would throw meat in the sea to make sure that sharks were frequently seen by the prisoners. 


We soon landed on the island and walked down the long jetty where our boat had mored. 

All the cranes you can see behind the jetty are at the port of Brisbane and are used to load and unload the ships. 

You can just see the boat we came on through the trees. 

The next thing we looked at was a bit of old wall and I began to worry that our visit would be really boring. It soon got more interesting! 

The next thing we saw were the different prison yards where the prisoners were kept during the day if they were not working. The prison discriminated against prisoners who were not white and the Chinese, black and Aboriginal prisoners had a smaller yard and had to do the nastiest jobs like emptying the latrines. Being a Teddy Bear, I know what it is like to be different and I think everyone should be treated the same. 


You've got to imagine what these buildings would have been like before all the wooden bits rotted and got cleared away. 


One of the most feared punishments for the prisoners was to be put in solitary confinement. This picture shows the entrance to the solitary confinement cells, which were underground in a deep cellar. 

Once in solitary confinement, the men were kept in the dark at all times. The guards did not speak to them and they were not allowed to speak themselves. They were kept in these conditions for weeks at a time. They must have felt pretty crok when they got out again. That's Australian for a bit ill. 


Things weren't much better if you weren't in solitary confinement. Here's a photo of one of the cell blocks. The horizontal lines are where the hooks for hammocks were screwed in. The vertical lines are where the wooden cell walls once were. They are not very far apart!  

Later on, we saw a mock-up of what a cell would have looked like.

Look at the bars on the door!

This next photograph shows you a guard standing in the corridor between the two rows of cells. 

This is a photograph of a model of the prison.

You can see the prison yards here, surrounded by a wooden fence that has disappeared by now. 

This photograph shows you what the front entrance of the jail looked like. There is a guard on duty in the watch tower. 


When the prisoners were not in their cells or the prison yard, they did all kinds of work. 


They ploughed the fields and grew all sorts of crops, including sugar cane. 


Here I am sitting on one of the ploughs they used: 

After the cane was harvested, the prisoners would process the sugar cane to make sugar.

 This is the sugar cane processing building where the sugar cane was crushed to extract the juice. . . 

. . . and this is one of the silos where the sugar cane was stored until it was crushed. All three silos were dug out by hand by the prisoners. 

This is the boiler that was used to heat up the juice from the sugar cane so that sugar crystals formed. 


As well as working in the fields, the prisoners also worked in workshops making all kinds of things. 

These men are working in the leather shop making harnesses for horses. Their hats are quite smart, aren't they? 


If you were involved in hard work around the prison you were fed quite well so that you had the strength to work. If you were in solitary confinement or sick in the hospital, you just got light rations. Here they are: 

Can you decide which are the light rations? This chart will help you decide. 

The people who worked at running the prison had a much more pleasant lifestyle. This is the prison governor's house. 

Many of the warders in the prison had families who lived on the island. The museum showed that the families did their best to make their children's lives happy even though they lived such an isolated life. 

They had lots of toys,

tricycles . . 

 . . . and nice bedrooms.

They even attended this school on the island. 


After school, they would play the same kinds of games as you. 

Here you can see some marbles, a toy boat and a book. They would have had TV, radio or computer games though - they weren't invented yet! 

Maybe that's why they had so many books!

So that the guards and their families could swim in the sea without being eaten by sharks, a big square cage was built in the sea. At one time, the swimming pool was surrounded by a wooden deck. Guess who got to do all the hard work but didn't get to swim! 


As you can see, it must have been quite a hard life for the prisoners on this island and quite a nice one for the children. As the prison got bigger and bigger, more and more people were needed to work there and there wasn't room for everyone to have their family living there. To save arguments, the prison authorities decided that only the Governor's family would be allowed to live on the island and all the other families had to live on the mainland. The guards would work on the island for weeks at a time without seeing their families until they were allowed to go home for a visit. I think most of the children would have been quite sorry to leave the island. I know we were. 


Hooroo!


Find out more about St Helena Island here

Creatures of Brisbane

G'day everybody!

I know that some of you are very interested in the different animals that live in Australia so I thought I'd tell you about a few I've seen since I was back in Brisbane. 

First of all, let me introduce you to a new friend I've made in Brisbane. 

Meet Ozzie Bear. We've got a lot in common: the same taste in jumpers and we seem to be on the same wavelength. It's nice to think you can travel to the other side of the world and still be able to find friends. 

Ozzie and I seemed to bond together as we tried to cheer up Gianni who came to visit us. She is called Gigi for short and, as you can see, she was feeling a bit grumpy. I couldn't understand why at first because I thought her Mum was feeding her a nice bowl of mushy peas - my favourite! But then I realised she was having squashed avocado for tea. Anyway, I was soon able to take her mind off it!

After that she went to sleep quite happily and we all ate a delicious curry. 

The next day, we went for a walk to Shorncliffe pier at the seaside and we saw some very interesting creatures. 

Can you see anything? Here's a close-up. 

No, it's not an alien, it's a jelly fish! We saw hundreds of them. Here's another.

It's been washed up onto the jetty. Here's another one:

I don't know how it ended up on the path. 

There are many different sorts of jelly fish in the sea around the coast of Queensland. A lot of them can sting you. You will find bottles of vinegar beside the lifesavers on the busiest beaches. The acid in the vinegar neutralises the alkaline sting and helps take the pain away. I bet you can't guess what people do if they are on a remote beach and haven't got any vinegar. They wee on the sting! Yuk! 

There is one sort of jellyfish that has a particularly dangerous sting. It's called a Box Jelly Fish or Stinger. A sting from a Box Jelly Fish can be fatal so when people are swimming in parts of the seas where there are stingers about, they wear stinger suits. I haven't seen any myself but I'll put a link at the end of the blog so you can have a look. 

We got so excited taking photos of the jelly fish, we forgot to take a picture of Shorncliffe pier. That's a shame because you would recognise it. It's a very cute pier and has been used as a film location quite a few times. It was used as a location for the Homebase advertisement when the pier was decked out with furniture, carpets and wallpaper from homebase. I'll put in a link so that you can feel as if you've been where I've been! 

At the end of our walk, we had lunch in this cafe. Mrs P had Moreton Bay Bugs, which are a sort of mini lobster. They are much more delicious than they sound. So delicious, in fact, Mrs P ate them all before I could get a photo!

Another strange creature I've seen was on the riverbank at Brisbane. 

This lizard was soaking up the heat of the sunshine by the side of the river. Because lizards are cold-blooded, they can't warm up their own bodies like we do and have to rely on the heat of the sun. This lizard wasn't a bit scared of humans and just stood still while we took his photo. He looks like a dinosaur or a pre-historic monster, doesn't he?

Talking of monsters, here's another!

This is an Aussie chicken sandwich! Mrs P had to take a deep breath before she tackled it so I had time to take a snap! I think I've mentioned before that they like big portions in Australia. This is their idea of good tukka (we would say good food). 

Here's another creature we saw on the river bank.

I know it just looks like an ordinary crow, but I've got to tell you that they are much bigger in Australia. And they are so noisy! There are lots of them living in the trees around the house where I am staying and they wake us up every morning. It's not just the sound of their cawing that wakes us up. They seem to stamp on the roof. Because this house has a tin roof, it amplifies every sound. The crows sound like a heard of elephants when they stamp across the roof!

Well, that's all for now! Hooroo!

Click here for Shorncliffe Pier

Click here to watch the TV advertisement

Click here to watch trailer for Australian film made at Shorncliffe

Click here to find out about stinger suits

Back in Brisbane


We were all quite tired after the excitement of the wedding so we took things easy when we got back to Brisbane. There was a bit of excitement, however, when one of the bride's friends turned up with a HUGE present that had been too big to bring to the wedding. 

We all wondered what it could be.

It took ages to unpack. 

And then we saw that it was a lovely chest of drawers with a Union Jack painted on it. The bridegroom has a few things with Union Jacks on it because he likes to be reminded of home even if he is an Australian citizen now. 

After we had cleared all the packing away, Mrs P said it would be a good idea to catch the River Cat into town. I wondered what on earth she meant! First of all we drove to Toowong and parked the car. 

We walked past the Regatta Hotel, which is a famous pub in Brisbane. It is quote old and built in the traditional Queenslander style. Only the upstairs part is open at the moment because the Regatta was very badly damaged by the floods that happened last January and it is still being renovated. 

When we got to the river, we saw this giant duck floating on the other side of the river. 

When we saw the news later that night, we found out that the duck was there to advertise a duck race that was taking place on the river later that week. 

I was still wondering what a River Cat might be. Seeing the giant duck on the river made me even more curious!

When it arrived, I realised that the River Cat is really a sort of bus that travels up and down the river. It is called a River Cat because it is a Catamaran. It's official name is CityCat. It's a great way to see Brisbane as the city is built around the river and you get to see it all while your sitting in the boat with a nice breeze to keep you cool. Here's a picture we took later after we got off. 

Can you see the big blue building behind the Cat? That's one of the city council's buildings and the windows have been designed to look like didgeridoos. To the right hand side is the old Treasury Building which is now a casino. 

Before we went to the city, we stopped off at GOMA, which is the gallery of modern art. We went to see an exhibition of indigenous art. That means art that was made by the traditional owners of Australia. 

I thought these totem poles looked very similar to the didgeridoos on the side of the city council building. 

These scary creatures are made to keep fire sticks safe. Here's some information about them: 

My favourites were these little dogs. They look very fierce with all their teeth showing, don't they?

Here's some information: 

After we had finished looking at the exhibition, we crossed the river and went to the city centre. In Australia, they call the city centre the CBD. This stands for Central Business District. There are a lot of posh shops there but Mr P and I soon got bored of shopping. The one thing I can say about the shops is that it is nice to get inside because the air-conditioning keeps you nice and cool. Mrs P got very excited because she saw a dress just like the one her sister had worn to the wedding in one of the very posh shops. She took this photo of it: 

We will be saying goodbye to the bride and bridegroom tomorrow when they go off on their honemoon. We will be looking after Chilli while they are gone. Next we will be saying goodbye to Grandma and the Bridegroom's brother when they set off back to the UK. We are going to enjoy some family time together before they all set off. 

I've put in a link so that you can visit the GOMA too. 

Hooroo! 

The GOMA has some great games for kids here. Click!