Future Plans

Preliminary ideas about developing interpretation projects and materials have emerged from the first stage of the project.
Ideas about how to display the information we have gathered and what direction the project should take in the future have been discussed with members of the Portland Roads community.

At this stage, we have built this website which has three purposes

1. To show RADF grant people what we have done
2. To test how things could look in the future
3. To curate all the information we have gathered (both pre and post RADF grant times)

Most of the people we talked to in the community of Portland Roads agreed:

1. that a website would be the best main option.
2. that some signage at the foreshore may also be needed
3. that an app may also be a good idea

The benefits of a website are:

1. Most people research a trip to the Cape on the internet
2. We can display large quantities and more detailed information on a website than by any other medium
3. A website is organic and can grow and have community, as well as wider audience, participation (examples here)
4. We can incorporate video and audio of the oral histories
5. A website can increase the potential for people knowing about this area and North Queensland in general

The possibilities with an app are:

1. We could have a self-contained app (ie that did NOT need internet access) for tablets/smart phones that could contain audio, video etc (a non-interactive example here)
2. You can have geo-location enabled, so that (for instance) someone walking along the foreshore to the jetty could see old photos of the jetty on the app, when they walked near the location where the jetty used to be. Or aboriginal guide talking about local food as the tourist walked past a spot where aboriginal people traditionally collected bush food. Basically we could set it up so that it would be like having your own personal guide with you.
3. The app could be available on the internet, and we could also hire out tablets (pre-loaded with the app)

 

 

 

 

 

While some of these stories could be geographically located, others could be associated with significant Portland Roads’ residents. For instance:

Many 4wd travellers, yachties and scientists fondly remember Barbara Holdsworth. She was an eccentric character, who, once you had signed her guest book “she was our mother, if you signed her visitors book, you became one of her children.”

Just about everyone who visited Portland Roads when Barbara was still living here, has fond and often strange memories of her.

We could have a “I remember Barbara Holdsworth” page or competition.

People would write comments about their previous visits to Portland Roads (we’ve already met several people live or via email who have volunteered their recollections of Portland Roads)