LOCALS and school holiday visitors to the region are able to take a step back in time with the reopening of a Riverland museum.
Renmark’s Olivewood Historic Homestead museum – containing the home of Charles Chaffey – is once again open to visitors following the relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions.
Olivewood volunteer committee member Dave Cooper said staff were eager to see the museum open to the public again.
“It’s been a long time, it might have been cold and not very wet, but it’s been a long time,” Mr Cooper said.
“Our volunteers are able to come back and as (of this week) we should be open for our normal working hours.
“They would have been eager to come back, because it gets a bit boring when you’re used to doing something and then you don’t have that activity.”
Mr Cooper said precautions against COVID-19 will be taken at entrances to the museum and near interactive displays.
“We’ll be able to reopen all our active museum spots,” he said.
“We do need to adhere with COVID-19 guidelines, which means we’ll have the doors open so nobody needs to be touching doors to see things.
“We’ll be promoting look rather than touch because our volunteers have to go through and re-sanitise, so the more we can cut that down the better.
“Where we’ve got our photographs and historical information, (committee member) Anne has grouped that together and put hand sanitiser near it.”
Mr Cooper said Olivewood was currently seeking new volunteers to join the museum in an administrative capacity.
“We have a good number of volunteers for the hands-on maintenance stuff, but we’re looking for more people who are interested in being the tour guide or reception person to come in occasionally, learn the history and pass it onto our visitors,” he said.
Mr Cooper said locals and school holiday visitors to the Riverland can experience the region’s history at the museum.
“The Chaffey Centre, the homestead, the packing shed and all the outside museum displays will be there,” he said.
“Come and enjoy our site. We have plenty of room for people to be able to get outside.”