Advertisement
Published: February 8th 2011
1. All the boys
with Leonie's delicious homemade Anzac biscuits...was Quinton’s response when asked how he was enjoying life at Jinjinnup, and it is a sentiment that I think we all concur with (though probably not exactly in those words - his brothers had misinformed him about a kiddies’ TV character being described as "pink and happy"!!) We were very reluctant to leave Leonie and Ants, as it really was a most relaxing and enjoyable week. Quinn and their 5-year-old Ethan hit it off from day one and, amazingly, not one altercation was heard between them. Ethan’s younger brother Finn was a bit out of sorts for the first couple of days, having lost his previously dedicated playmate, but then William stepped in and played very nicely with Finn. Oliver and William also ‘rediscovered’ each other, and during the times William was preoccupied with Finn, Oliver spent time with the adults, which he has been craving. He seems to be settling down which is a relief to us. And as for Paul and I, we had plenty of time just for us, and we also had some lovely chats with Leonie and Ants. Perhaps for me one of the real joys of this trip is having the chance to spend
some quality time with old friends, and to make new friends. Life is so busy at the moment, particularly with children, and normally when I come to Perth I only manage a quick get together with my friends, pretty much all of which leave me with a feeling that there just was not enough time to really catch up.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that, whereas we intended to only spend a couple of days in Bremer Bay, we ended up spending eight eventful days there (though not nearly as eventful as our first night. Thankfully our awning has been fixed!). Jinjinnup is about 1400 hectares, and like most farmers in Australia, Ants runs the farm by himself. He has sheep (South African Merino, multipurpose sheep good for fleece and meat), cows (meat only, no milking), and has diversified to also grow wheat and another stock feed whose name I can’t remember. There was an empty patch of land by the swamp, so Ants and Leonie are also going to try their hand at growing wild flowers as well.
We were very fortunate to be around at sheep shearing. The shearing team arrived on Wednesday
morning, causing much excitement amongst the Marketos clan. The team comprised four shearers, and then four ‘floor’ workers (the most important of whom is Jo, who sorts and grades the wool). With music blaring, the guys start shearing, taking about two minutes per sheep. Hopefully a video clip will be uploaded to give you an idea of how sheep are shorn downunder! Two of the shearers were from New Zealand, but have settled in Albany after falling for Aussie chicks. They earn $2.20 per sheep (and should they have to shear a dead sheep, which in this case they did, as a lamb became trapped in the holding barn and was subsequently squashed by the other sheep) they earn $4.00! A good shearer works 11 months of the year, but it is back-breaking work! They start at 7.30, and finish at 5.00pm, with two ‘smoko’ breaks and lunch in between. Last year one shearer had a heart attack. Interestingly, on the same day, another shearer from the same shire also had a heart attack, and both were flown into Perth where they informed the doctor that this was the only way they could get a ‘bloody day off work!’. He
is still alive and shearing, apparently.
Paul had great fun helping to herd the sheep into the barns, and together with Leonie, separated the ewes from the males. Sadly, two males had their lifespan seriously curtailed when they decided to pee at a most inopportune time; they had been incorrectly tagged as ewes, which are kept around for a while longer to breed, but they blew their cover as Leonie noticed them peeing in a most unladylike fashion. They were promptly separated and sent to join their buddies. I guess Leonie had to do this, as she was busy trying to convince Ants to return her pet sheep to the homestead rather than to the fields after shearing. Annie, Boy and Bones were orphaned during the last lambing season, and Annie and Bones in particular seemed to be quite put out that they were put in with the rest of the sheep. Every time they saw a human they raced away from the flock and tried to rejoin the human ‘flock’. I think Ants was hoping they might rejoin the flock, but they saved their own skin by refusing to rejoin the flock at the end of shearing (Boy,
on the other hand, willingly went with the flock…)
Another unusual pet was Feathery, a rooster that Ethan, and consequently Quinton, adores. He is over 10 years old, and was carried everywhere. He was even brought inside the caravan, and given Quinton’s pillow to sit on to watch a DVD! Not to be left out, Quinton grabbed another pillow, and positioned all his cuddly dogs on it so they could also watch the DVD (which I believe was Chicken Run!!!) I however was not too impressed when I discovered that Feathery had pooped in the caravan! On day four Leonie became seriously worried about Feathery, as it appeared all the attention (including trampolining and hurling poor Feathery into the air to watch him ‘fly’) left him a bit shaky and unsure on his feet. He was still alive when we left!
We did a lot of exploring around the farm, and the boys particularly enjoyed climbing and running along the hay bales. The boys explored the swamp, which they said was quite eerie. They had to bash there way through numerous spider webs and had a few confrontations with spiders, which had them a little anxious. Ants and
Leonie also keep two alpacas, who in theory are supposed to protect the lambs from foxes. This theory is still to be tested properly.
Weather again was not great, but we did manage to get in a few good days on the beach. And what amazing beaches - each place we go to we can’t imagine beaches getting any better, but they do. The first Sunday we were there was really wet and miserable, but we decided we needed to get the kids out, so we went for a drive to Reef Beach, not a road we would have been comfortable taking the Volvo in. Here we found huge dunes, and both kids and adults alike had great fun sliding down them on the skim board. It was freezing though. The first sunny day saw the Marketos family, with Ethan and Finn in tow, rush off to Blossom Beach, to date rated as Paul’s and Oliver’s favourite beach. The sand was white, the beach empty, the water crystal clear, and then just the right sized waves for Paul to body surf, and for Oliver to learn how to boogie board. Heaven! In fact, all the beaches we went to
7. Message in the shearing shed
Left by a shearer who had a heart attack. He is apparently still kicking! at Bremer Bay were glorious.
Having rushed through Albany on the way to Bremer Bay, we decided to return there for a day to visit Whaleworld, the only whale museum to actually be sited at an original whaling station. The museum has as its centrepiece an old whaling ship, Cheynes IV, and overall, it is quite a gory look at a stage in human history which is not so great. The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company was established to capitalise on the abundance of whales in the region (interestingly, whaling is Australia’s oldest industry, and many of the ships that brought convicts to Australia were whalers which, on unloading their human cargo, would promptly hunt and collect whales to bring back to their home ports). Whaling quickly became Albany’s leading industry, with whalers from the United States, France, and other colonies rushing to the town to take part in the massacre. The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company killed up to 850 whales every whaling season, up until 1978. Chasers would leave Albany harbour early in the morning, and would return each evening, dropping their catch (which they collected on their way back from their final kill, having left earlier kills floating
and radio tagged in the ocean) at the whaling station on the way back to the harbour. The following morning, flensing (the cutting up - or butchering) of the whale was done. Everything except the teeth went into giant pressure cookers.
Whale killing was quite gruesome, with many whales suffering a very drawn out and painful death. Ironically, when the exploding harpoon was developed, making the killing of whales much easier (and perhaps slightly more humane?), demand for whale oil was dropping, due to the creation of synthetic oils. Sadly for these magnificent and generally peaceful giants of the ocean, it was as if whalers just had to use this new ‘toy’, and they continued to hunt whales, extracting the oil to be used in...soap!!… and making a high protein powder out of the rest of the whale to be added to stock and poultry food!!! And when whalers could no longer easily find the large whales, they went on to hunt the next largest, and then the next largest, until they even hunted the relatively small Minke Whale. The massive Blue Whale was hunted relentlessly, with some groups never expected to recover, while more than a quarter of
a million Humpback Whales were killed, wiping out more than 95 per cent of the population. Fortunately, pressure from conservation groups and a critical drop in demand for whale products led to the cessation of whaling.
Whaleworld has a very informative tour, well done with audio reenactments of a whale chase and the subsequent ‘processing’ of the whale. On the tour was a guy who worked for the Albany Tourism Board. Surprisingly, this was the first time he had visited Whaleworld, despite recommending it to many tourists. He told us that as an eleven year old he went there once with his brother and watched in fascinated horror as the whalers shot at great white sharks who were ripping the flesh off the whales waiting to be flensed. Each chunk of flesh the sharks took meant a huge loss of income to the whalers (so much so that they would cut open dead sharks to retrieve the $100 worth of blubber inside them!) He said the sharks appeared to have caught on to the fact that if they leapt fully out of the water, and used their weight to tear at the flesh of the whale, they could rip
off a bigger chunk of meat. He said it was gruesome to watch, that there was blood everywhere and bullets flying, so much so that he just could not bring himself to return to this place, until now, about 30 years later. Next to the whaling station is a small, beautiful little cove with a clear white beach, oddly named Misery Beach. But the name in the past was very appropriate, as, when whaling was in operation, this beach was always red from the blood of whales and sharks.
As you can probably tell, this visit has left quite a mark on me. I shall be interested to see what the boys took out of this visit; as part of their homeschooling programme, we have decided that they had to do mini-projects on certain things we have seen. They are currently writing one on their visit to Whaleworld, which they are due to finish today.
Anyway, I think I have pretty much covered everything that happened during a week at Jinjinnup. Oh, there is one incident which I had promised not to share, but on subsequent consideration I feel obliged to as there is a great insight into
11. Feathery in the caravan
On Quinn's pillow, watching a DVD (Chicken Run!) Aussie deadpan humour. On Friday night, the big boys (aka Ants, Paul and Oliver) went to the Sportsmans Club for dinner (a regular fundraising evening at which Ants is a volunteer). It was raining, and Ants suggested Paul use the car to take him and Oliver to the cricket oval. Paul began to reverse the car, but without actually putting the clutch in, hence destroying the reverse gear (how he managed to do this is beyond all of us, including him, as he has always driven a stick shift). He is mortified. But the reason I am writing this is not to cause him shame; rather, Paul, on relating the story to one of the volunteers who had heard the massive crunch, was told not to worry: “It’s not your fault mate! They should have made the bloody thing stronger!”
We were also around to catch Ethan’s first day at ‘big’ school. On Wednesday the school bus arrived to pick him up at 8am, not to return until 4pm that afternoon. It is tough being a farm boy, but he takes it in his stride.
I am writing this in Esperance, where we were hoping to spend a
glorious week enjoying the purportedly best beaches in WA, but strong winds, and heavy rains (rains which this morning led to our annex being flooded, and our caravan’s skylight leaking - temporarily fixed by Paul with Prestik and the kids’ modelling clay) have prevented us from seeing these beaches. We are therefore seriously considering gapping it, but rather than heading straight for the Nullarbor (which was our original intention) we might actually head up to Kalgoorlie for a few days, for a change in pace and scenery. I think the boys would really enjoy it, particularly considering their fascination with all things gold, so will keep you posted…..since writing this, we have decided to take our chances with the weather and stay on for a few more days, though I am still keen to visit Kalgoorlie before heading east…
Advertisement
Tot: 0.284s; Tpl: 0.034s; cc: 12; qc: 57; dbt: 0.2058s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
littlewing
Cindy
Really enjoyed your blog - great to read about towns here in WA which are not really regarded as "tourist destinations" - I also saw the whaling station in action as a child -horrifying - so nice to see they have forgiven us and are often spotted near the whaling station both at albany and norwegian bay. Looking forward to your next adventure :)