Australia here we come!

30/8/12

It was a lovely sunny morning and the girls made the most of it by washing all their dirty clothes. At 10am we went to a morning tea put on by the Caravan Park Management. It was very interesting to talk to the other travellers at the morning tea and we found out a few things about our future destinations. After morning tea we drove Camerons Caravans and Mary-Anne bought some anti-flappers for her awning and we bought two small replacement fridge shelf brackets. The girls had planned a sit down lunch at a seniors mush pit and they dragged me along. After we all had our fill of soft tasteless food we drove to Mt Melville Tower Lookout. After an easy climb up a spiral staircase we were presented with a panoramic 360 degree view of the whole town and ocean. Then we drove to the oldest residence in Western Australia, Patrick Cottage, and found that it closed for the day at 3pm. We arrived at 3.01pm. Then we went to the Albany Museum which had displays of whaling, a real lighthouse reflector and a history of the town. It was getting late so we returned to the caravan park. As it hadn't rained all day we decided to take down the annex walls and put them away dry.

31/8/12

We left the caravan park at about 9am and drove to Cameron Caravans where we bought some more anti-flappers for our awnings. Then Karen ran next door to Bunnings and bought a thermos flask that will hopefully keep water hot. Then we drove to the Natural bridge and The Gap. Both are formations carved in solid granite by wind, rain and the ocean. The Gap, which is a sheer 25 metre drop to the swirling ocean and about 10 metres across, was a natural bridge but the top section fell away a couple of thousand years ago. It is amazing how much granite there is in this part of the world and it all was once joined to Antarctica before we broke away 45 million years ago. The immense periods of time involved are difficult for us humans to comprehend when we are talking about changes in the earth that take place continuously but minutely.

From The Gap and Natural Bridge we first stopped at Salmon Holes which is a small bay where salmon congregate each year on their annual migration. They shelter there in bad weather to rest and to avoid predators. Then we went to Cable Beach. There were lots of steps to the beach over and down solid granite but the beautiful turquoise water was worth the effort. Before returning to the car we walked further up the hill to what we thought was a lighthouse but instead we found a satellite receiver station. It is part of the National Search and Rescue Service and distress signals are picked up and relayed from here to Canberra if an alert is activated by a crashing plane or sinking ship.

At last we arrived at Whale World which was once Australia's last and biggest whaling station. It operated from 1952 to 1978. It is a depressing place if you are a whale fan but the history of it is important. There are whaling displays everywhere. The large whale oil tanks have been converted to cinemas which were interesting. On display in the whale bone section is the skeleton of a pygmy blue whale that was washed up on a beach near Albany some years ago. It was huge!!!! The pygmy blue whale is the second largest whale and grows to a length of 20 metres. The blue whale is the largest creature ever to live and grows to 30 metres and weighs 100 tonnes. The skeleton we saw was about 15metres long and dwarfed everything else in the large shed. Also on display is the last of the whale chasers. A large ship called Cheynes IV (Pronounced CHAINS 4). It has been fully restored and is in dry dock. Visitors can walk everywhere on and in the ship.

We were all happy to leave the old whaling station at the end of the day. It is not a place any of us want to visit again. On the way home we stopped at the Vancouver Lookout which provides a wonderful view of Frenchman Bay. It was starting to rain so we couldn't stay too long. We wanted to visit the blow holes after Vancouver Lookout but a 900 metre walk in torrential rain was out of the question. We drove back to Albany and filled up the cars and bought some more groceries before returning to the caravan park.