The HMS Buffalo replica at Glenelg.
The original Buffalo was built in Calcutta in 1813 and this replica was constructed from Admiralty plans of the original at a cost of $1.5 million. Totally authentic, it includes navigation maps, extracts from log books, original diary notes, sketches and photographs to tell the tale of the voyage and the people involved.
In the early 1980s local vintner and entepreneur, Wolf Blass built this full scale replica of the ship on the banks of the Patawalonga which operates as a restaurant with an historic museum of photographs and memorabilia releting to the ship and the people who came on it.
The original Buffalo was a merchantman, the "Hindustan' intended for service with the east India Company. Later that year she was sold to the Royal Navy and renamed the 'Buffalo'. Located in a park, north of the Anzac Highway off Adelphi Tce, on the site of the first Customs House, you can visit the museum between 10am am and 5pm. daily for a small fee.
The restaurant is open for dinner daily.
Enquiries on Ph: 08 8294 7000.
Details
Length: 120 ft (39 metres)
Beam: 34 ft (11 metres)
Armament: Sixteen 24 pound cannon and two 9 pound long guns
Complement: 94 officers and crew, 37 passengers and 138 immigrants
On deck was stored furniture, personal effects, and livestock being shipped for the Governor. Livestock included pigs, fowl, dogs and cows.
History: The "Buffalo" made 2 previous trips to Sydney transporting women convicts calling in to New Zealand on the return voyage to collect Kauri pine, used for masts and spars on other vessels.
It remained anchored at Glenelg for around 6 months and Governor Hindmarsh lived aboard until his house was completed.
She sailed for Sydney on the 14th. June 1837, then went back to England. In June 1839 she sailed for Quebec in Canada to pick up a number of rebels and convicts who were transported to Hobart, arriving in 1840. She then sailed to New Zealand to load cargo where she was wrecked in Mercury Bay in the Bay of Islands on the 28th. of Juky 1840.