Day at the Museum

The long awaited day had arrived.  The new Australian Armour and Artillery Museum in Cairns was having its Opening Day event and I was heading down to check it out.  I have always had some interest in military history, particularly that which involve North Queensland and my own family.  The fact that someone was building a big military museum at Caravonica to house the largest collection of armoured vihicles and artillery pieces in the Southern Hemisphere had come as a bit of a surprise.  For many months I had been following, on their Facebook page, the development of the buildings and the collection and could hardly believe the extent and importance of the pieces that were to be put on display.  So it was with some excitement that I drove down to Cairns to spend a day at the new museum.

A bit of a surprise

The first sight of this new museum complex showed that these folk were damn serious about their passion for military history and were here to stay.  Although I had arrived at about 10.00am, the car park was already full and I had to park my car over in the Tjapukai Cultural Park and walk across to the museum.  Along the front of the building there were a number of stalls giving the event a bit of a festive look.  The Australian Military Forces had set up a recruitment display and the local military vehicle enthusiasts had brought in some of their jeeps and there were also some food stalls.  I walked up the steps and found a queue from the counter back out to the front doors.  It took a little while to get my ticket and as I entered I was surprised by what appeared to be a German SS Officer in full dress uniform walking pass carrying a maschinepistole sub-machine gun.  Yes, it looked like some members of the Townsville based North Queensland Historical Re-enactment Society had come up to join in the opening celebrations.  I strolled past the World War Two Japanese soldier in combat dress and entered the collection.  Oh Wow!

Part of the collection

The huge building was made up of two display areas with the larger front shed been filled with the artillery pieces and the more historic tanks.  I wandered about the dozens of old cannons, reading the excellently presented information panels which gave a good run down of the history and statistics of each piece.  I must admit that my favorite was the fine specimen of the infamous German 88 millimetre gun.  At the end of the building was probably the most important piece in the armored collection, a fine example of an Australian Sentinel tank.  One of only four left in existence from only fifty-six that were ever built.  It looked like it would have been the equal to any medium tank that was been built at that time.  Oh what could have been!  Soon after my encounter with the Sentinel, a rumble from my stomach told me that it was well past lunch time and as the entry ticket acted as an all day pass, I wandered outside to one of the food stalls.  A small eatery inside the complex might be something for the future, maybe combined in with the front counter.

Returning to the collection after I had satisfied my hunger, I found an old friend viewing the guns, Stephen Fowler.  Steve is the Officer in charge of one of the local Air Cadets units and is also the president of the Cairns Historical Society and a prominent local military history enthusiast.  He had been invited to the Official Opening held the previous evening and he gave me a rundown on the event.  He also pointed out that beneath the floor of the main building was a room with a fifty metre long shooting range and out the back of the museum was a large workshop where the vehicles could be serviced and maintained.  After chatting with Steve, I wandered over to the smaller wing of the complex where some of the more modern military vehicles were on display.  As I finished up my visit, I realized I had spent four hours at the museum, so I certainly got my money worth.  I think this centre, along with Beck's military museum and the War Birds aviation museum at Mareeba and a possible military museum at the old Rocky Creek igloo will create a wonderful circuit for those interested in our military heritage.  Mr Rob Lowden and his team have certainly put together something special here and I wish them well for the future.  

The new museum complex