The Western Australia Maritime Musuem - Shipwreck Gallery is located at Fremantle (a port city located 19 kilometres southwest of Perth).  This gallery is recognized as the foremost maritime archaeology museum in the southern hemisphere.

The most interested thing that I have found in Shipwreck Gallery is this Batavia Gallery.  It displays the reconstructed remains of the Batavia - (a ship of the VOC - Dutch East India Company) which was excavated by archaeologists in the 1970s.

The ship is also visible from the upper floor.  Although it is not a complete piece of ship, but it is still quite big.

Can you imagine how big this ship was?

The body of the ship was made of wood.

SiewPeng and Colin were standing next to Batavia.

The cannon is placed not far from the ship.  I guess that it must be found on the ship.

This big anchor is hanged beside the Batavia.

There are many other relics which were found on Batavia.

This set of skeleton is labelled with “One of the first Europeans in Australia. - A victim of the Batavia mutiny.”

We continued our visit on another section in the gallery.  It has a window with blue sky outside.  What was I waiting for?  I quickly pointed my camera to the window and clicked on the shutter button.

Colin, SiewPeng and the window at ShipWreck Gallery.

From the upper floor, I could see the information counter down there.  When we entered this gallery we were welcomed by the staffs and asked for donations as entrance fee.  We handed the money to her and she gave back the exactly amount of smaller notes and coins, and we put some $2 coins into a box as told by the staff.

I also found that there is a section with information leaflet for visitors with a donation box beside labelled with  ”20 cents for each piece” or something similar.

SiewPeng and Colin in Shipwreck Gallery.

We entered another section which is called SS Xantho Gallery.

[Xantho was originally built during this period of transition from side paddles to screws (screw propeller). I. K. Brunel’s historic screw-driven steamship Great Britain was built in 1843, five years before the side-paddle Xantho was launched. By the time Xantho ended up in the hands of the Glasgow scrap dealer, side-paddle steamers were pretty much obsolete.]  - taken from Western Australian Museum website.

SS Xantho was sank on 1872.

This is the engine of Xantho that the musuem had tried to restore.

SiewPeng and Colin and the Xantho engine.

The anchor in our background is the one near the entrance of this gallery behind the information counter.  It is huge and hanged from the upper floor to the ground floor.  Can you scroll up and find the photo of this anchor which I have taken from the upper floor?

As we know, usually in a museum or gallery, we may not be allowed to take photos.  I have asked one of the friendly staffs and she said it’s alright to take photos there.   Thanks to them and in return I write this post here, I hope to attract more visitors to this gallery.  If you are interested to see more about shipwreck, you should pay a visit to this Shipwreck Gallery at the corner of Cliff St and Marine Terrace, Fremantle, Western Australia.