Kate stood on a steam engine

Our first stop in Clermont was the Museum and Heritage Park, which opened in 1988, and is packed (and I mean, packed) full of approximately 8000 historical artefacts. Items on display include cooking utensils, sewing, medical, hairdressing, photographs, typewriters and letters, there was anything you could think of that was used in everyday life. There were sheds packed full of engines and machinery, including a power shovel from Blair Athol mine, an old train, the old Masonic Lodge, an old steam engine which was used to shift the town after the flood, a shearing shed and fire engine - to name but a few.
The lady who was looking after the museum at the time was most welcoming and made us a cup of tea when we got there! She must have a lonely life as she said that we would probably be the only people she would see that day, some days she sees nobody. It was really interesting, and there was something for everyone. Dad was like a child in a sweet shop outside looking at all the machinery! He borrowed my digital camera and snapped away, we didn’t think we’d get him back in the car!
I had parked the car against a hedge whilst we were in the museum so that any passing undesirables would not see that the window was invitingly open, but we really needed to get it fixed as we were supposed to be fossicking that afternoon.

We turned up at a workshop where an unsmiling and extremely miserable woman told us that Fred was on his dinner for an hour and he probably wouldn’t be able to fix it anyway without stripping the car down completely. As we discussed our predicament outside, we must have looked so miserable that the big woman felt pity and came stomping out with a skinny weathered (and no doubt hungry) Fred who she said would try and help us after all. She stood with her hands on her hips as Fred set to work on the window. It took a fair while for him and dad to strip the door down before finally in a glorious moment the window slid up to the top!

I showed mum, dad and Kate around the historical sights of Clermont that Andy and I had seen on our previous visit, before we headed off to the Anakie Gemfields to do some fossicking!