Pioneering Dairy Families photo exhibition

Tuesday, 12 April 2011 00:00

The Cheese World Museum will hold a photographic exhibition featuring a number of local pioneering dairy farming families to celebrate Australian Heritage Week from April 14 to 20.

The photograph highlight local families contribution to the early beginnings of the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory (WCBF) and showcase the region's unique local dairying heritage to the wider community.

Cheese World promotions and marketing coordinator Kim Kavanagh says Museum volunteers have been contacting a number of the Suppliers whose families have held long associations with the WCBF to gather their stories and photos for this display.

"The shoe boxes of old photos have been dragged out and gone through and old memories rekindled," she says.

The volunteers have also been working on the construction of an early dairy which will also be launched during Heritage Week. Over many months they have collected old weathered timber and rusty tin sheets to provide them with the authentic materials to recreate an early milking bale.

"When completed it will show exactly how the cows were milked at the turn of the century and it will feature the first mechanical milking machine surrounded by the other items that were used in what would have been considered a state of the art milking shed. They have collected an early milk cooler, which was used before refrigeration to cool the milk, separators for removing the cream from the milk, old hinges and hooks and even a three legged milking stool."

This exhibit will become a permanent display in the Museum as a testimonial to the hard working pioneering families of the district.

Where: Cheese World Museum, 5330 Great Ocean Road,  Allansford
When: Opening April 14