Access to the Lady Nelson Discovery Centre is via the Visitor Centre. Visitors can walk through a series of rooms with displays on local geology, wetlands and indigenous history, including an interesting 10 minute hologram video featuring the ‘ghost’ of Christina Smith, an early European settler, appearing to step out of a photograph and relating the story of her experiences with the Aboriginal people in the 1840s.
One can also learn about the voyage of discovery undertaken by Lieutenant James Grant on the Lady Nelson, a 60 ton brig. His Majesty’s Armed Survey Vessel Lady Nelson was commissioned in 1799 to survey the coast of Australia and was the first ship to sail along the coastline of South Australia. It was on the Lady Nelson that Lieutenant Grant first sighted Mount Gambier in 1800. Her size and shape was so small that she was called disparagingly His Majesty’s Tinderbox’ when she first left London.
A life size replica of the ship, a community project, is located in front of the centre. There is also a working replica of the Lady Nelson in Hobart Tasmania operated by the Tasmanian Sail Training Organisation. http://www.ladynelson.org.au/