When most of us think of pirates our thoughts go to the likes of Black Beard, Black Bart and Thomas Tew names which come to us from a time when piracy on the sea was at a peak. The blood thirsty adventures of these characters have been immortalised in numerous books and movies over the years most recently in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Despite their gruesome reputations as thieves and murderers we maintain a fascination that is enduring and which perhaps this is a reflection of the convict heritage of the first European settlers to Australia. Pirating  far precedes the

Some visitors to the museum this week were surprised to see paddle wheel vessels on display. Coming from area around the Murray River which forms the boarder between much of Victoria and NSW and were used to seeing paddle-wheelers but were unaware that the North Coast the Richmond River and Port of Ballina was the home for a number of these vessels. Paddle wheels came in two styles- the stern wheel had one large paddle attached to the rear of the vessel and the side wheel which often had two wheels attached one on either side of the ship. Our visitors

It is surprising the number of visitors from Ballina Shire who visit our museum and comment that they have lived here for years had never visited before. Equally surprising are those who say that they didn’t know we had a naval and maritime museum and that they had found us by chance or through the internet. Perhaps given the fact that it is difficult to find traces of our past along the river or foreshores this may come as no surprise. To paraphrase Jamaican author Marcus Garvey, a people without the knowledge of past history, origin and culture is akin to

The old adage, “a photo is worth a thousand words” is certainly true.  Even if in today’s world of computerised editing and software that can manipulate images almost seamlessly makes telling truth from fiction a little more difficult and in some cases impossible. Still, photographs of historic events and things often provide a tangible link to the past and give us the opportunity to understand the sense of place, style of clothing and social importance of things past.  Who hasn’t spent hours looking over old family photographs trying to imagine what life would have been like back in the day? Here

When the early morning silence off the coast of Ballina was shattered by an explosion on the morning of 26th April 1943 it created a riddle that would not be solved till August 2013. On that bright moon light morning the T.S.M.V Limerick was torpedoed off the coast of Ballina by a Japanese submarine I-177. A refrigerated transport she was part of convoy GP.48 escorted by to Australian naval vessels HMAS Ballarat and Colac. Her crew of seventy were rescued from the water and subsequently landed at Brisbane. The Pilot station in Ballina was alerted to the event by officers from Garden