Sixty years after entering Port Phillip Bay [under Flinders in 1802], INVESTIGATOR returned with cargo for the Victorian Gold Rush. After 77 years of service, she was finally sold in Williamstown. Ironically, the ship that put Australia on the map [literally] finished up a coal hulk in Melbourne. In 1872, her register closed with the comment “broken up.” It was a dreadful end to arguably Australia’s most historically significant ship.

In Melbourne you might catch the D6 Tram down Flinders Street, alighting at the French Renaissance style Flinders St Station. In South Australia a geology student from Flinders University, might undertake field work in the nearby Flinders Ranges

Two centuries later, the books used as source material by Flinders during his three-year voyage are back on Australian soil, in the possession of the National Archives in Canberra.

The truism that product lifetime “ain’t what she used to be many long years ago” is underscored by the Navy’s decision to fork out an eye-watering $90++billion on subs having a service life only ten years longer than its build-time.