Museum excursion to Port Stephens, 1880
Leafing through old newspapers often yields interesting material, some of it relevant to the Hunter Region of NSW where I live. The following two-part article is a good example. It provides an interesting account of a sea journey from Sydney to Port Stephens in 1880, purportedly to gather specimens for the Australian Museum. The author - who also did some sketches which are reproduced as engravings - describes a new fish-processing enterprise, the inner lighthouse and telegraph station and the down-at-heel city of Newcastle. It's also a rather bloodthirsty account, since the members of the expedition…