9th till 11th day
Door: Peter
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Peter
24 November 2016 | Australië, Pemberton
Thursday 17 November.
Today we were going to have a look at the old whaling station.
I always associated Albany with whaling and thought it was the only place in Australia where they had done any whaling, but now I know that they had whaling stations in Carnarvon, on the mid-west coast of WA, as well as in Queensland.
We had no idea how whaling took place in the late sixties and seventies, but discovered that with the usual human cunning they had devised a process of catching these giants of the sea on an industrial scale. The animals would be caught mainly on the edge of the continental shelve, some 40Km out from land. They used a spotter plane and sonar to track them down. Some Norwegian in the nineteen fifties had designed a harpoon with explosives in its tip, which would explode after impact (a brilliant idea). This first harpoon would in most cases not kill the animal, so a second harpoon would have to be used. After the kill they would pull the animal alongside the boat and use a large “needle” attached to a compressor and pump the whale full with air, so it remained afloat and also attach a flagpole with the colour marking of the boat which had caught it. Then they would let it float and continue the hunt for others. At the end of the day they would collect the cadavers and tow them all into the whaling station. Attacks from sharks were sometimes a problems and at times they pulled in a cadaver, which was half eaten by sharks. When the sharks attacked the cadavers alongside the boat the whalers used rifles to shoot the sharks.
The whale processing plants were most of the time far out of town, as the smell was said to be dreadful, much worse than an abattoir. A whale is a mammal and thus the meat is the same as from a cow, however a whale has a thick outer layer of blubber to withstand the cold of the Antarctic waters. This blubber was valuable for the oil and the removal was called flensing (a Norwegian word). This processing was mainly done outside, exposed to the weather, flies and other vermin. They used large very sharp lances and trampled all over the blood and guts. It must have been a gory business, blood and guts everywhere, completed with scant regard for any occupational health and safety.
The whaling station as a tourist attraction is a bit tired looking, exhibits are old and poorly displayed and deteriorating (bones etc). Audio-visual (most likely from the nineties) is also of poor quality, 3D movie is not really 3D, just out of focus and the audio is hard to understand. There is no information on the current whale population or its research or the politics behind the international whaling commission and its work. The cafeteria with large windows overlooks the sea and beautiful coast line, but the windows are very dirty, so you can’t say that one can enjoy the view.
The whole thing just needs some money and some expertise.
After this tourist attraction we went to see the “Gap” and the “natural bridge”. Now these places developed by the National Parks department are really well done with good access roads and good parking close by. The gap is a coastal feature where the sea has cut a very narrow inlet between two shear granite walls about 20 meters apart and a 25 meter drop to the sea. The parks department has built an overhang structure, 10 meters beyond the wall from beautiful stainless steel and also stainless steel viewing platforms to see these features from the best vantage points. The natural bridge is indeed a bridge formed by huge blocks of granite, where the rough sea has carved the bottom blocks away and washes underneath with extreme fury at times. After such fine sights it was time for a nice cup of tea back at our very comfortable abode.
Friday 18 November
For today we decided to do a big walk in Torndirrup National Park. Our Airbnb accommodation is on the edge of this park and there is a nice 16Km walk on the Flinders Peninsula. The weather was very good, blue skies all the way and just a little wind to keep us cool. The walk was up and down and mainly on a ridge, so you could see in the direction of the southern ocean to the right and the King George Sound to the left and the height must have been at least 80 to 100 meters above sea level.
It was a great walk. Enjoyed the colours of sea, sky, sand, shrubs and flowers, the smell of flora and salty air and the sound of the wind and the swooping swallows. We did not walk all the way to the end as that would have taken us (oldies) 6 to 7 hours. I think we must have walked 2/3 of the way and had our lunch on a large rocky outcrop, high above the sea, which gave a splendid view over King George Sound with Seabreak and Michaelmas Island directly in our view. Lunch, a tasty sandwich, an apple and a choc chip bar, tasted beautiful and was washed down with rainwater ahhhhh. The surroundings and the making and carting of the lunch to the picnic spot, definitely contributed to the enjoyment of the meal.
Early in our walk we saw a man walking towards us, he was taking photographs of us. He was on a rise and we were walking across the ridge below. I assume he just wanted some attractive people in his beautiful panorama and out of all the people present we were clearly it. It was a bit creepy as he turned around and ran off and disappeared in the bushes. We never saw him again, but my mind stayed on him for a while as I imagined him coming out of the bushes with a great big knife, finishing us of and chucking us over a cliff into the deep blue sea, never to be seen again. All the wild flowers must have created a florid wild mind.
After such a long hot walk we found another beautiful beach, it was called Misery beach. We have no idea why it was called this as it looked absolutely stunning. There were only 4 other people on this beach. It was in a protected cove, clean white sand, no kelp or sea grass anywhere and the colour of the water went from crystal clear through turquoise green to deep blue.
The water was ice cold and it took us a while to get used to it. Feet frozen we eventually thought it was fine and had a lovely swim. Another day in paradise.
Saturday 19 November
Our last day in Albany.
We decided to go to Two Peoples bay.
The bay was called by 2 explorers, a Frenchman and an American in the eighteen hundreds, both their home countries had just had their revolutions and republics established, so instead of calling the bay after some royal toff, they called it after the peoples of the nations. Jan and I decided to honour the name by just the two of us going and leaving everyone else at home.
I have to admit to a slight frustration here, every time we go to a beach I try to park as close as possible, usually ending up walking an hour or two through coastal scrubland, getting to the beach totally exhausted and finding that everyone else has driven right up to the beach. I usually tell Jan then that we had a nice walk and the exercise is good for us and then say “Are you thinking what I am thinking B1” (B1 usually does not answer).
But on this walk we came across a little beach, just for the two of us, a great find.
So settled on our towels and in our bathers, we hopped into our lunch and it was gone in no time. Then it was time (for me) to go in the crystal clear water. The water was very sheltered behind granite bluffs in a corner of the cove, with little swell, shallow and of a small area, so one could not really swim. Not that I ever do, I usually hop about a bit, ducking in and out of the waves like a seal, swimming 2 strokes and then rolling in with the waves, there is no point wearing yourself any further out after a walk.
Anyway at this beach I entered the water again like a man walking barefoot on broken glass and then lowering myself into the water like a heavy man falling back in a generous comfortable recliner meeting the water with such a surprise when finding my arse suddenly dipped in a freezer and then sucking in half the atmospheres’ air as the water was very no extremely(!) cold. Sitting on the sand the water came to the nipple line and the swell, of about a centimetre, kept licking above this nipple line and I was unable to control my vocal chords and I sure was not praising the Lord. It felt like being whipped and every lash resulting in another hallelujah, but I stayed in for 3 minutes, prove that they make ‘m tough in Holland.
Jan never made it into the water, she was happy to be a prop on the beach, in her bathing suit, lovely hat and cool sunglasses. I had to take of course a photo of a beautiful and romantic beach scene. After having taken the photo I showed it to her and she said that it was not a flattering photo, but I disagreed, I said it was a beautiful photo.
Suddenly grey clouds, of many shades, covered the sky and we thought that it would rain soon, so got quickly dressed. Then after walking a short distance back on the track the skies were all blue again so we decided to walk to the official beach, Little beach. Again a glorious beach in a cove with the mouth of the cove open to the Southern Ocean, so it had a massive swell, too big for a Dutchman. We watched a couple of other people in the water pretending to be tuna, but without the can they made only poor imitations.
We walked back to our car with the satisfaction of having had our own little private beach in paradise and reminding B1 of the healthy aspect of this walk and finished the day with a nice meal of calamari, salad and chips washed down of course with a scooner of “One Fifty Lashes”.
Sunday 20 November.
Drove from Albany to Walpole. Blog shop closed.
Today we were going to have a look at the old whaling station.
I always associated Albany with whaling and thought it was the only place in Australia where they had done any whaling, but now I know that they had whaling stations in Carnarvon, on the mid-west coast of WA, as well as in Queensland.
We had no idea how whaling took place in the late sixties and seventies, but discovered that with the usual human cunning they had devised a process of catching these giants of the sea on an industrial scale. The animals would be caught mainly on the edge of the continental shelve, some 40Km out from land. They used a spotter plane and sonar to track them down. Some Norwegian in the nineteen fifties had designed a harpoon with explosives in its tip, which would explode after impact (a brilliant idea). This first harpoon would in most cases not kill the animal, so a second harpoon would have to be used. After the kill they would pull the animal alongside the boat and use a large “needle” attached to a compressor and pump the whale full with air, so it remained afloat and also attach a flagpole with the colour marking of the boat which had caught it. Then they would let it float and continue the hunt for others. At the end of the day they would collect the cadavers and tow them all into the whaling station. Attacks from sharks were sometimes a problems and at times they pulled in a cadaver, which was half eaten by sharks. When the sharks attacked the cadavers alongside the boat the whalers used rifles to shoot the sharks.
The whale processing plants were most of the time far out of town, as the smell was said to be dreadful, much worse than an abattoir. A whale is a mammal and thus the meat is the same as from a cow, however a whale has a thick outer layer of blubber to withstand the cold of the Antarctic waters. This blubber was valuable for the oil and the removal was called flensing (a Norwegian word). This processing was mainly done outside, exposed to the weather, flies and other vermin. They used large very sharp lances and trampled all over the blood and guts. It must have been a gory business, blood and guts everywhere, completed with scant regard for any occupational health and safety.
The whaling station as a tourist attraction is a bit tired looking, exhibits are old and poorly displayed and deteriorating (bones etc). Audio-visual (most likely from the nineties) is also of poor quality, 3D movie is not really 3D, just out of focus and the audio is hard to understand. There is no information on the current whale population or its research or the politics behind the international whaling commission and its work. The cafeteria with large windows overlooks the sea and beautiful coast line, but the windows are very dirty, so you can’t say that one can enjoy the view.
The whole thing just needs some money and some expertise.
After this tourist attraction we went to see the “Gap” and the “natural bridge”. Now these places developed by the National Parks department are really well done with good access roads and good parking close by. The gap is a coastal feature where the sea has cut a very narrow inlet between two shear granite walls about 20 meters apart and a 25 meter drop to the sea. The parks department has built an overhang structure, 10 meters beyond the wall from beautiful stainless steel and also stainless steel viewing platforms to see these features from the best vantage points. The natural bridge is indeed a bridge formed by huge blocks of granite, where the rough sea has carved the bottom blocks away and washes underneath with extreme fury at times. After such fine sights it was time for a nice cup of tea back at our very comfortable abode.
Friday 18 November
For today we decided to do a big walk in Torndirrup National Park. Our Airbnb accommodation is on the edge of this park and there is a nice 16Km walk on the Flinders Peninsula. The weather was very good, blue skies all the way and just a little wind to keep us cool. The walk was up and down and mainly on a ridge, so you could see in the direction of the southern ocean to the right and the King George Sound to the left and the height must have been at least 80 to 100 meters above sea level.
It was a great walk. Enjoyed the colours of sea, sky, sand, shrubs and flowers, the smell of flora and salty air and the sound of the wind and the swooping swallows. We did not walk all the way to the end as that would have taken us (oldies) 6 to 7 hours. I think we must have walked 2/3 of the way and had our lunch on a large rocky outcrop, high above the sea, which gave a splendid view over King George Sound with Seabreak and Michaelmas Island directly in our view. Lunch, a tasty sandwich, an apple and a choc chip bar, tasted beautiful and was washed down with rainwater ahhhhh. The surroundings and the making and carting of the lunch to the picnic spot, definitely contributed to the enjoyment of the meal.
Early in our walk we saw a man walking towards us, he was taking photographs of us. He was on a rise and we were walking across the ridge below. I assume he just wanted some attractive people in his beautiful panorama and out of all the people present we were clearly it. It was a bit creepy as he turned around and ran off and disappeared in the bushes. We never saw him again, but my mind stayed on him for a while as I imagined him coming out of the bushes with a great big knife, finishing us of and chucking us over a cliff into the deep blue sea, never to be seen again. All the wild flowers must have created a florid wild mind.
After such a long hot walk we found another beautiful beach, it was called Misery beach. We have no idea why it was called this as it looked absolutely stunning. There were only 4 other people on this beach. It was in a protected cove, clean white sand, no kelp or sea grass anywhere and the colour of the water went from crystal clear through turquoise green to deep blue.
The water was ice cold and it took us a while to get used to it. Feet frozen we eventually thought it was fine and had a lovely swim. Another day in paradise.
Saturday 19 November
Our last day in Albany.
We decided to go to Two Peoples bay.
The bay was called by 2 explorers, a Frenchman and an American in the eighteen hundreds, both their home countries had just had their revolutions and republics established, so instead of calling the bay after some royal toff, they called it after the peoples of the nations. Jan and I decided to honour the name by just the two of us going and leaving everyone else at home.
I have to admit to a slight frustration here, every time we go to a beach I try to park as close as possible, usually ending up walking an hour or two through coastal scrubland, getting to the beach totally exhausted and finding that everyone else has driven right up to the beach. I usually tell Jan then that we had a nice walk and the exercise is good for us and then say “Are you thinking what I am thinking B1” (B1 usually does not answer).
But on this walk we came across a little beach, just for the two of us, a great find.
So settled on our towels and in our bathers, we hopped into our lunch and it was gone in no time. Then it was time (for me) to go in the crystal clear water. The water was very sheltered behind granite bluffs in a corner of the cove, with little swell, shallow and of a small area, so one could not really swim. Not that I ever do, I usually hop about a bit, ducking in and out of the waves like a seal, swimming 2 strokes and then rolling in with the waves, there is no point wearing yourself any further out after a walk.
Anyway at this beach I entered the water again like a man walking barefoot on broken glass and then lowering myself into the water like a heavy man falling back in a generous comfortable recliner meeting the water with such a surprise when finding my arse suddenly dipped in a freezer and then sucking in half the atmospheres’ air as the water was very no extremely(!) cold. Sitting on the sand the water came to the nipple line and the swell, of about a centimetre, kept licking above this nipple line and I was unable to control my vocal chords and I sure was not praising the Lord. It felt like being whipped and every lash resulting in another hallelujah, but I stayed in for 3 minutes, prove that they make ‘m tough in Holland.
Jan never made it into the water, she was happy to be a prop on the beach, in her bathing suit, lovely hat and cool sunglasses. I had to take of course a photo of a beautiful and romantic beach scene. After having taken the photo I showed it to her and she said that it was not a flattering photo, but I disagreed, I said it was a beautiful photo.
Suddenly grey clouds, of many shades, covered the sky and we thought that it would rain soon, so got quickly dressed. Then after walking a short distance back on the track the skies were all blue again so we decided to walk to the official beach, Little beach. Again a glorious beach in a cove with the mouth of the cove open to the Southern Ocean, so it had a massive swell, too big for a Dutchman. We watched a couple of other people in the water pretending to be tuna, but without the can they made only poor imitations.
We walked back to our car with the satisfaction of having had our own little private beach in paradise and reminding B1 of the healthy aspect of this walk and finished the day with a nice meal of calamari, salad and chips washed down of course with a scooner of “One Fifty Lashes”.
Sunday 20 November.
Drove from Albany to Walpole. Blog shop closed.
Reageer op dit reisverslag
Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
