Elizabeth Farm excursion

We've been out and about on quite a few excursions lately. A couple of weeks ago we visited Elizabeth Farm at Rosehill/Parramatta. Now this is a really nice and well maintained place. One of the things that struck me was how quiet it was as we walked around the grounds - rather amazing considering how close to Parramatta the house is! The creek where the settler's used to collect water is now a concrete canal, that was a jarring image and did not help us in our imaginings....nevertheless, Elizabeth Farm retains, and offers, a lovely sense of days long gone.

Something we appreciated was being able to touch items in the house. At first thought, you might prefer more authenticity and want the furniture and furnishings to be preserved originals. But because everything is a copy, we were free to touch whatever we wanted. To sit at Elizabeth's desk, to lounge on the chairs, to sit at the table...Sarah was even able to play a song on the piano in the retiring room! Nothing was roped off or out-of-bounds, which satisfied all our senses. There was one point, when we were relaxing in cane chairs on the cool verandah, watching butterflies flitting through the flowers in the sunny garden, where none of us wanted to get up again! Oh, to while away an afternoon sitting there reading and looking! Aaahhh, that would be bliss! Naturally, if we were dreaming of doing this in days long gone, we would have wanted to be free to do that, and not have been one of the hard-working, long-working servants or convicts!

We were well informed of all the house's history and shown over the home by our very own personal tour guide. He was a nice volunteer fellow who was full of interesting snippets about how life in the House would have been for the Macarthur's and their servants. John Macarthur was a rather controversial man who seemed to be involved in a lot of trouble making to protect his own interests. Whilst he is credited with being the father of Australia's wool industry, not enough credit is given to his wife Elizabeth, who managed the Farm quite successfully whenever John was back in England for years at a time, usually having to account for trouble he had been involved in back at the colony!

Sarah & Daniel were quite taken with the home and want to re-visit. I am thinking of organising to go back as part of a homeschool group excursion, because they set up some activities for school kids, which would be interesting and fun as well.

After our tour of the home we sat for a lovely Devonshire Tea in the Farm's Cafe, and talked about how nice it would be to live in a more rural setting, complete with a rustic, old-fashioned house. Both the children are now convinced they want four-poster beds, with very high mattresses, but Daniel is adamant he will not be using a commode! Give us the Farm House...but give us modern conveniences as well - bathrooms, toilets, internet access and electricity for starters!!!



We've also read a 'My Australian Story' book called The Rum Rebellion : The Diary of David Bellamy - Sydney Town 1807-1809. An interesting read which gave us more insight into life in those early days of the colony. John Macarthur's involvement with events that led to the military marching into Government House on 26th January 1808 and imprisoning Governor Bligh, eventually led to his being sent back to England (again) once Governor Macquarie arrived to sort out the mess and free Bligh. Now there was a man who was hardly done by! The mutiny on the Bounty was not the last of his troubles by a long shot. Anyway, as for the book, I was sorry I had not taken it with us when we visited Elizabeth Farm, because it would have been quite pleasant sitting in the grounds reading aloud another chapter to Sarah and Daniel.

Here's a page on the Rum Rebellion from Sarah's Australiana book