Goose Green Farm

It was a bit of a blustery start but it soon became a beautiful sunny day. The group began the day by meeting the Goose Green Farm Manager Keith Alazia at the shearing shed. 

Keith talked to the children about the farm (the livestock, size of the farm, employees/residents and the history of the shearing sheds). The shearing shed used to be the largest in the world - it was built in 1922 and completed in 1927. The shed can hold 5,000 sheep.

Thank you, Keith Alazia, for giving up your precious time to talk to the group and allowing us to walk around and learn the history of Goose Green.

An old aerial photograph shows the old rail tracks from the shearing shed leading to the jetty. As time has gone on, the rails have been covered, so the children all had a go with metal detectors to see if they could detect and follow the tracks - which they successfully did! 

The group had a look in the Goose Green Museum and talked about some of the artifacts and displays on show. Following the Museum, we headed for the Goose Green Community Hall. Sandra talked about the history of Goose Green, the Canning factory and the 1982 War. 

Shortly after we walked down to the old stone house near the jetty where they learned the history of the building. The house is leased by Brian and Diana Aldridge. Brian had kindly written his memories starting from the age of 12 when he attended Darwin School, right up to his time when he became Manager of Goose Green. Thank you, Brian, for sharing such valuable information. 

Time was running short, so the group moved on to Darwin School site. Everyone was a little peckish by then. The area was rather exposed so we decided to shelter by the old foundations.  These foundations belonged to a house that was occupied by people looking after the cow shed. Here Sandra talked to the group about Darwin School and showed them some photographs. After our picnic we headed over to the foundations to explore what remained of the Darwin School.