Expunged from dirty ships!
Going ashore at Spring Cove an entry point sounds like,
The fountain of youth.
This could not be so far from the truth!
Emigrant ships of shame, carrying dying cries & pain.
Britain program of exporting poverty, free settlers with voyage scourges, Typhus, scurvy, cholera, small pox, Malnutrition & Yellow fever.
Stonemasons from the ships will bide their time etching & carving stone.
With pride that somehow they survived with Capt. & crew.
Doctor’s reports 24 children and 30 adults passed on the voyage.
The tally etched Epitaphs. Some on tablets, obelisk & cliffs.
Passengers of the "John Barry”, 1837.Left an Obelisk monument on the hill, next to the wall.
To their surgeon superintendent who stood so tall, he was last to fall.
Mary Deakin’s and her daughter were also taken; Eliza Blaxland was saved from this place. About the hill side the accommodation was structured divided amongst the British type classes.
Down below the autoclave steamed and wrestled with clothes, possessions and other were simply hosed showered and cleaned. To expunge the demons. This sanctuary of solitude they would sit and contemplate thoughts.
What is going on up the port?
Sydney town they had fallen short!
They waited for news of government list, for a sponsor would be needed to flee this place. Health had returned the doctor reported.
Not a second longer in this place could be thought.
To all those who left loved ones behind in this land & more at sea.
A very different life they will lead.
A new country, a new start.
Away from the sea.
Colin - April 2006
Ps. Persons names used are ficticious.