Wingham Museum...what a find that was!

One of the towns in the Manning River district is Wingham. 

It was to be our lunch stop but before lunch, it was decided to have a 'quick look' in the museum which was in an old shop. Well, it was like a Tardis! It may have looked like a small shop from the outside, but the rooms just kept leading off one another! 

There was 'an old school classroom' exhibit...

Uniforms and other war memorabilia...

Lovely old sewing machines and beautiful lace garments...and a magnificent sewing box.

Toys, movie projector, old medical and dental equipment and lovely old musical instruments.

I loved the old family portraits all along one wall. The evening cape was like one my mother wore when she and dad went to Symphony Concerts.

The display of natural science items plus a cabinet of aboriginal artifacts...

The old offices' section...

There were displays of the important early transport in the area...shipping and the railways. ( I love the 'hand' peeping out of the trunk! Lol

Old radios and gramophones...

Even the DJ's turntable and mike from the local radio station...circa 1950s-60s

Then there were 'the rooms'... the laundry...or wash house as my mum always called it.

The bedroom...I was particularly taken with the 'gentleman's travelling trunk!

The kitchen...

The dining room...

The sitting room...

Old push mowers and early motor mowers!

There were stacks of other things too, including displays of early agriculture in the district.

And even a display of Masons' regalia...

So you have probably guessed that the 'quick look' actually took a while? Best thing though was that our US cousin was able make contact via this museum, with a representative of the historical society of the area. This person was happy to do family research on  Adrienne's 'grandfather' and his wider family, on Adrienne's behalf. Win win!! 😄

Skagway...

Our third stop in Alaska was Skagway. It was still rather chilly at 9am in the morning.

And, as at our other stops, we 'shared' the town with other cruisers. :-) This was just one of the 3 other ships in port.

We started by catching the shuttle to the set down point right in the middle of the town. And then we walked around. A lot of places were not open until 10am so we filled in time by this 'exploring'. We found an old steam engine languishing in a back street...

Even I was cajoled into climbing up into this engine, but there are no photos to prove this. Believe me it was a long way up to get into the engine...getting down again was even more 'hilarious'!
We continued walking up the back street and noticed a small stream (Pullen Creek). Then DsD3 noticed that were salmon in this little creek. Later we found out that this little creek plays an important part in the annual salmon spawning. And I found this video here. We were just as excited as the people whose voices you can hear in the video. Here are DH's photos...

Moving on...
This building was actually down a side street and was both the Town Hall and the Museum.

There was lots to see inside...those jackets were made from sealskin.

 A mock up of a home in the earlier part of the 20th Century.

 The cup and saucer in the following collage was interesting. It featured the British King, Edward viii, who of course abdicated and his brother, the present Queen's father took over. ( and my reflection is in the mirror back of the cabinet) The blouse in the bottom righthand corner was exquisite.

There were interesting animal exhibits...the tusk on the top lefthand corner is that of a woolly mammoth apparently.

After the museum visit we went our separate ways for a while as I wanted to visit this shop when it opened.

I had a lot of fun looking through that shop!

More of the town...some sculptures.

Like the other 2 towns we visited, the early history included the 'ladies of the night'...

The lady in the window was inviting people to come in, but what for, we have no idea :-)! Lol.
More street views...

 I mentioned the 'ladies of the night' before, well let's have a closer look at one of the preceding collage photos...note the sign...'House of Negotiable Affection'; what a delightful term for a brothel! lol (I hastily add that it is a former rather than current 'house of ill repute')

More of the town...note more of those timber sidewalks/footpaths.

The railway was important in the history of Skagway and near the railway depot building was a lovely garden and some old locos.

The bottom left hand photo shows a rather elaborate 'snow plough/blower' attachment for an engine.
We checked out a few souvenir shops. This one had a big range of items featuring Sarah Palin...(In Juneau we had the opportunity to get our photos taken with a green screen of Sarah Palin)

After this we headed back to the ship for lunch.  From the ship's Garden Cafe, we had a great view of the dock area and the heliports. The helicopters were kept busy taking tourists from the cruise ships on flights. It was a good day weatherwise and none of the excursions had been cancelled.

Later we would return to the town for our afternoon excursion.