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Published: July 27th 2012
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Dog Rock
Woof Woof! More sightseeing was on the agenda for day 12 of the tour, but today was more about “Historic Albany”
We rose early and headed down to Albany’s waterfront which was the sight of the first landing of the British. First place we went was The Old Gaol or Cork City Gaol as I was calling it. The gaol was very interesting, again telling us of the history of the place and some of the prisoners that had been there. It also had the earliest known prison drawings by Aboriginals and surprise, surprise a few ghost stories behind it as well. At $5 entry, it was great and we spent at least 2 hours there looking at the old prison cells and reading about lads that “might” have been the Boston Strangler (who had spent time in the gaol).
Next place we visited was the Brig Amity. This is a replica of a ship that was used back 1800’s. It first arrived in Albany in 1828 or thereabouts (the old memory isn’t great these days). It is full size so we climbed on deck. With our entry fee (again $5) we received a handheld speaker device. When we came to
Albany's Old Gaol
Inside one of the cells certain areas on the brig we could punch in the number that was there, and a recording would play telling us the history of the people on board, the workings of the ship and an account of what the Aboriginals thought when they first saw white folk! Again, it was great to be on-board a ship like this to really appreciate what it would have been like to spent weeks on end on-board this vessel, like they did in Pirates of the Caribbean!
After we were all sailed out of it, we walked along the waterfront and came to Albany Entertainment Centre. It was like a smaller, blacker, pointer version of Sydney Opera House but still an impressive building! Some might say it was probably designed by an engineer rather than the florist that designed Sydney’s version.
On further we walked and after a hard mornings sightseeing we saw a welcome sign that suited us perfect, “The Historic Inn”. “Sure we’ll have to have a look there”, says Coley,” and if it is a pub, sure we might have one”. On we sauntered and sure enough the historic inn was a pub indeed. It was an old British
The Brig
A Fine Vessel styled pub that had sign for Newcastle Brown Ale, The News of the World and massive replicas of a Drumstick and Refresher bars. I took a photo of Colman next to the Newcastle Brown Ale sign and one of myself drinking a bottle of the stuff and tagged Chez from the Tomatoes in Echuca in them on Facebook as a tribute to him (mind).
Next stop was Fort Princess Royal which was a coastal defence fort during World War, a bit like Charles fort in Kinsale but a lot more modern. Great, I thought to myself, Coley’ll spend all day here due to his FCA days. He did spend a lot of time looking at stuff but to be fair I didn’t mind as it was all quite interesting. Right up on top of the fort were defence guns, massive yokes they were. Further down we saw the Command Centre and the defence trenches dug into the ground! On down again and we saw missile launchers and the rest of the machine gun batteries! We had some craic sitting up on them, swinging around and pretending to shooting each other. It was like we were both 10 years old!
Across from the batteries were the old barracks and living quarters, and because of all the plaques and signs there along with memorabilia we could have, or at least Coley could have, spent another full day there reading up on the history of the place. I should mention that the fort was on Mt. Adelaide and the views from the fort were incredible but we were yet to see the bay in full but I’ll get to that.
I’ll get to it now in fact as after we left the fort we were right next Mt. Clarence. This was the highest of the three mountains surrounding Albany. We parked near the top but had to climb probably another kilometre to reach the summit. When we got there though we knew it was worth the effort. Just below the summit was attribute to Anzac which must have been a 50 foot high statue of 2 horses and the lads that would have been on them. When we got to the actual summit, breathtaking 360 degree views of Albany, the bay and the islands of the bay awaited us. Thank God we got a nice day for the visit and we
The Historic Inn
Just One we had! could see as far as the horizon all around us!
Another successful day and our last in Albany as we decided we were moving on in the morning, in the direction of Esperance.
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