Day 34

Day 34 Point Sampson

 The day started well with calls from the kids wishing me a happy Fathers’ Day, which was a good

Cossack Cemetery

Cossack Court House

way to catch up with them and the news from home. We then exited the park and went for a drive to Cossack. It never ceases to amaze me that people way back in the middle 1800’s would sail up here in the middle of nowhere and start a town. At one stage Cossack had over 800,000 sheep, over 60% of all sheep in WA, now, there is none. They must have been people of great vision to look at the place and see the potential beyond the swamps and dryness.

The original benefit for Cossack was that there was a river entrance to the sea that allowed the then sma

Old General store

Touring Cossack

ll ships in to offload and onload goods. The lifestyle looks as though it would be pretty tough by our standards, but back then they were pretty average for anywhere in the state really. There was a school, not only in Cossack but in nearby Roebourne so when one was destroyed by a cyclone, they would transport them to the other. People seemed to be more prepared to travel to where the opportunities are and set up homes. None of this fly in/ flu out stuff, you moved to the work place. I suppose Perth being so small in those days did not have the attraction to keep people. The luxuries we know now and take for granted did not exist, your focus was on shelter, work and money.

They have a lovely little museum there where they talk about how it was established with both the

My new Caravan

Old Kitchen

good and bad sides such as the slaving of aboriginals, native massacres as well as the quirky characters that were there such as the guy who was in charge of firing a cannon when ever a ship appeared to alert everyone to get ready to help out, he would load in old bits of metal and then sit on the cannon and fire it, until one day he stuffed too much metal in it, sat on it and when he fired it, it blew up, killing him. Some lovely stories told on their displays that really show the human side to early settlements.

The view from the lookout at the point were spectacular and it is from up there you suddenly see why

Cossack Prison

Cossack School

the place was chosen and why when ships got bigger, they moved away to other places. Maureen took a video of it so you get the full picture.

Back at camp we had a rest, well I had a rest, I spoilt Maureen and let her do the Laundry and prepared for the big casino night here. Last night at happy hour, we were told that Sundays were gambling nights and we had to bring a dollar in 20c

Japanese Grave

School information

pieces. I cannot remember what the game was called, or even if it had a name but the rules are simple. You all start with 5 coins. There are 5 Die, each with 2 R’s, 2 L’s, 1 C and 1 K. you roll the die and for each resulting face you either pass coins to the player on the L –left, R – right, C –centre (bowls in the middle of the table) or you K – keep it so if you roll 2 R’s, 1 L, 1 C and 1 K, you give the player on your right 2 coins, the player on your left 1 coin, place 1 coin in the centre bowl and you keep 1 coin. You pass the die onto the next plater and he does the same, you could end up getting coins from them depending on how he rolls and so on until the die come back to you. If you only have 3 coins, you can only roll 3 die, if you have no coins then you skip a turn and

Cossack Cemetery

Gambling

so on until you get down to the last person with a coin, if they roll a C or a K, they win the pot of all the coins in the centre bowl, if they throw a L or R, then the person with the coin rolls and so on. Great game, allows for conversation and a few jokes, it was the game we saw people playing at Coral Bay and they had 50 or so people there, so a pot of $50. The people telling us about it here said they had learned it in Coral Bay!

We are now back at Girt and having tea, cold rissoles and red wine and watching some cloud cover come in, might be a chilly night.