Saturday 5 March 2011: Having set up our site yesterday today was our settling in day. Whilst Marion did some washing I spent a very frustrating day trying to fix the html language mistakes that kept appearing in my Week 1 blog. No matter what I did the mistake kept coming back. I tried the suggestions in the help file, but nothing seemed to work. The problem centred around the Word document I had imported into the blog. After a very frustrating day I gave up and published with no photos and all the mistakes, determined to have another go when I got the chance. That was the end of Saturday! Eventually I got it right.
Sunday 6 March 2011: We were up in time to go to 9.30am mass at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church, Henley Beach and enjoyed a special mass for the children who had started school this year, it was heart warming to see them all singing "Butterfly Wings" and doing the actions that go with the song. Back at the caravan we had time to relax for a few hours, before setting out on the drive to Flagstaff Hill where we visited our cousin Jill and her husband John. Cousin Lee was there also with friend Allan; as was Aunty Nat. Jill's sons Adam and Justin popped in for a short visit an we said hello to Adams wife and children also. For reasons that will become apparent I have not mentioned surnames here. Jill must have worked for hours preparing finger food of all shapes and sizes! What a spread! We were treated like very special people and Marion and I enjoyed this interlude immensely. Good company, good food and wine and great surroundings. I really looked forward to seeing this branch of our family once again and was not disappointed with the hospitality. It's great to see them all again.
Later that same afternoon we were invited over to a friend's house to see an avairy full of birds, including some very tame black cockatoos bred in capativity. We were also shown a great collection of asian artefacts that had us enthralled as each item was explained to us in detail. Also included in the tour were some special religious icons and other assorted items that took one's breath away! We were both very grateful for the opportunity to see all these wonderful works of art and will remember the experience for a long time to come! We met this person through our cousins' auspices and because the collections we saw were of some value, I have not mentioned names here for obvious security reasons. All in all we had a wonderful afternoon and enjoyed ourselves very much. It was all over too soon! We took Aunty Nat home and dropped her off with the promise of a luncheon over here at our caravan; as well we have planned a family trip to the country side at Tooperang to see the family farm. We are looking forward to that, as we will see a memorial to my Uncle Bernard for the first time.
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| One of the Carvings We Were Shown |
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| Bob & Black Cockatoo. |
Monday 7 March 2011: Today we set out to do some research regarding Marion's "family tree". We wanted to find the grave of one Thomas Humpstone Willington, Marion's Great, Great, Great Grandfather. He had been transported to Tasmania as a convict for stealing wearing apparel at the age of 21 in 1830, aboard the S.S. Clyde. His sentence was seven years tansportation and we are not sure if he served the whole of his sentence, or received a pardon at some stage of the sentence. In any event he subsequently arrived in Adelaide and worked as a "Hawker" in the Port Adelaide area, before moving to Melrose, S.A. where he set up a store. He later returned to Port Adelaide, became a well known pioneer and builder and was one of the first subscribers to the Port Adelaide Institute. His photograph appears in a supplementary history of the institute.
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| Thomas Hump[h]stone Willington His Tombstone shows Thomas Humphstone Willington |
It took the help of Meredith from the Port Adelaide Library to find out the lease number of Thomas' grave in the Cheltenham Cemetery. After some inquiries at the cemetery office we were able to locate the grave, which turned out to be a family "communal" grave. When we found it the tombstone was inscribed with several names of his descendents and, we thought, his name did not appear. We were about to walk away when I told Marion to walk around to the next row of graves and stand behind the tombstone whilst I took a photograph. Low and behold on the back side of the tombstone Marion found Thomas' name and the names of his immediate family inscribed. The tombstone had been turned around to use both sides!
The tombstone had been turned around to use both sides!
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| Front view of grave. |
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| Rear view of grave. |
Considering ourselves lucky to have found the tombstone, we decided to call in person to the Port Adelaide Library and thank Meredith in person for her research and emails to us in Queensland before we left on our trip. We found the library without any trouble and introduced ourselves to Meredith, who turned out to be the head librarian. She took us into the locked research room where she did some more research for us and provided us with copies of several documents which will be added to our family history websites. Meredith also suggested we become visiting members of the library, which would give us access to the internet resources there. We took up her offer. Thanks Meredith!
We treated ourselvs to lunch and returned to the caravan to make some telephone calls. We learnt that Jill's husband's mother is very ill and we did not know this when we visited yesterday. John had insisted nothing be said as he did not want to put a damper on our visit. We feel very sad for him and the family as things do not look to good. We decided to call it a day and remain at the caravan for the afternoon. During the night it began to rain.
Tuesday 8 March 2011: We awoke at 4.00am to the sound of heavy rain and found to our dismay the water had pooled in the roof of the annexe! Hasty provisions were made to support the roof with additional poles to ensure the water ran off. Our efforts seem to have worked and as I write the rain seems to be easing off. Thank goodness!
Our Site at Adelaide Shores Caravan Park, S.A.
Well I was wrong. As it turned out it rained all day on and off. We heard on the radio we had over 30ml last night (1" +), more in one night than the average rainfall for the month! We were happy to stay home in the van and relax whilst keeping an eye on the water on the roof of the annexe. I lowered one corner of the anexe in order to allow the water to run off somewhat easier and this worked well. We decided to put the T.V. inside the van in case water dripped on it; and whilst we were doing that we hooked up the satellite dish to the T.V. and tried it out. We thought a large tree at the back of our van would block it out, but it didn't and we were able to watch the news on our local channel back at home. We were also able to watch the ABC programs in Queensland which was a bonus as they came on half and hour earlier than in S.A. I read some more of Kiki's book, "The Voyage of Islita" and did some writing also.
The forecast is for the rain to ease off over night and we are hoping we will be able to go for a drive tomorrow.
Wednesday 9 March 2011: After Ash Wednesday Mass at Henley Beach, we drove to Port Adelaide and had a look at the Port Canal Shopping Centre, where we had lunch. We then strolled over to the Port Adelaide Library and used our visitor's account to do some more research. From there it was a rather long drive across town to the Payneham Cemetery, where we found the groundsman very helpful. He contacted the records office for us and found the location of the grave of Henry John and Susan Catnach Willington, Marion's Great, Great Grandparents. He was kind enough to take us to grave site which was located near the corner of Marian Street, Payneham. We were most grateful for his assitance!
Marion's ancestors, Payneham Cemetery, Adelaide, S.A.
After photographing the tombstone above we drove back to the caravan, arriving home at 4.30pm. Another day was gone! Sadly when I checked out our messages, we learnt that my cousin Jill's mother-in-law had died in hospital. I made some telephone calls of condolence and sent off some emails. We will attend the funeral next Tuesday.
Thursday 10 March 2011: Today we spent all day at the caravan reading and wrting and updating the family tree website. It was good to have a relaxing day, after all the running around we have been doing. Tomorrow we will go shopping.
Friday 11 March 2011: Another relatively lazy day in Adelaide. We drove over to the Marion Shopping Centre to get some decent clothes to wear to Mrs Koukourou's funeral and managed to get what we needed in our respective sizes. We had lunch at the shopping centre before returning home for a quiet afternoon's reading and relaxing.
Saturday 12 March 2011: This morning I drove over to Aunty Nat's home and picked her up for lunch at our caravan. We had a lovely few hours chatting over lunch, walking down to the beach and going for a drive around Adelaide City. I was very happy to have this opportunity to have Nat over to our van as she had never been on our previous visits to Adelaide. We drove Nat home to her house and returned to our van in time to relax for an hour or so before our evening meal. All in all a very nice day!
Aunty Nat and Bob 12 March 2011.
And so our second week came to an end.
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