The shearing museum in Hay is very good. The building is, deliberately or otherwise a great pun – sheer walls for shearing.
The history is in many ways a history of workers’ rights in australia, coupled with the great wide-comb controversy of 1983, where the workers sided with those kiwi types because they wanted to shear more sheep to make more money. The “bosses” wanted to keep it as hard as possible on just this one occasion.
The only use one can think of for the hammer was to encourage recalcitrant sheep to keep the f## still.
Hay is on the great droving trail from Moama/Echuca to Wilcannia. It is also the crossroads of the great western and the cobb (north/south) roads.
michael monaghan
Michael Monaghan Photography 