Our house is abuzz with Bushrangers right now as the boys are working on a research project. They have each chosen an Australian bushranger and are learning more about their lives and bushranging activities.
Back in late August, we got to go to the National Library and have a guided tour of some of their holdings.
This sketch of Ned Kelly’s armour was done soon after his arrest. Did you know his iconic helmet weighed 97 pounds (about 40 odd kilos?) and that was without wearing the rest of his armour!
The library tour guide also read to us a story about the "Death of Ben Hall", a bushranger famous for being a gentlemen. He apparently didn’t kill anyone in his robberies though was betrayed to the troopers at the end. We went into a storage room at the Library where we were able to see some impressive art works:
This one is "The Death of Ben Hall" and you get a sense of the size by seeing the children (below) standing in front of it.
I was amazed at all of the work just hanging ther in storage. I suppose it is used for exhibitions and displays both in the Library and further afield but it seemed such a shame that so much was just hanging there, out of sight!
The older boys were able to see Ben Hall’s gun and both group saw Captain Moonlight’s famous lantern, used on his daring midnight raids.
Each group got to draw up their own "Wanted" poster, having the example of the Kelly Gang’s poster on the reverse side.
After a great visit, we went on to Questacon for lunch and some "Science" time in the afternoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment