![]() ![]() It was so different to anywhere they had ever seen before. Scrawny dogs fossicked among the rubbish looking for scraps.Ĭharlotte, Nell and Sophie all stared with wondering eyes. The port was filled with people milling around and going about their business: soldiers in red coats, bearded bushmen in cabbage-tree hats, women in voluminous skirts, children ducking and weaving, sailors cursing and gambling, and Chinese coolies carrying buckets of water and baskets of vegetables. Sydney town seemed busy and overcrowded, with twisting dusty tracks and a confusing jumble of slab huts, bark humpies and imposing stone houses. Here Charlotte and Nell transferred to a smaller coastal steamer, which transported them to Sydney in New South Wales, a voyage of two days. On August 25, 1859, they landed in Port Phillip Bay, near the town of Melbourne. The sky seemed vast and deep, deep blue, and the sun always seemed to shine, although it was still winter in this topsy-turvy land. The coast looked scrubby and flat and desolate, so different from the emerald misty hills of Scotland.īlack seals, dolphins and huge whales dived and played alongside the ship. ![]() At last, in August, Charlotte and Nell caught their first glimpses of the new continent, Australia, which was to be their home. The voyage of three months seemed interminably long. ![]()
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