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Published: February 28th 2010
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Old Tom's Bones
Complete with the worn left side teeth due to towing the boats out. What a traitor to his own race! Canberra was lovely. So lovely that I would’ve liked to have stayed a week, and visited many other local attractions. Onward and Southward we went, though, and Thursday afternoon we arrived at Eden on the far South Coast of NSW.
Eden is a gorgeous little fishing village surrounded by State and National Parks. It was once home to a thriving tuna industry which closed some time ago and left the locals and some keen fishermen behind. It's one of those places where you could just stay for weeks. It’s certainly a place I could live, except for those long cold winters!
We stayed in a Caravan Park because, believe it or not, the national parks are more expensive to stay at! We’ve found that this is the case in every instance we’ve enquired about camping in a national park camping area. It really is a bit of a let down - who would’ve thought that power, running water, hot showers, flushing toilets and washing machines would be less expensive than nothing!
Anyway, the park we stayed at was across the road from ‘The garden of Eden’ … no joke! The bird life was incredible, all day long, different
Our Cute & Furry Fishing Friend
Apparently he's a regular through there, and his name is Sam. birds sang and played around us.
We spent Friday getting into some school work - trying to catch up on the week of excursions we’d had at Canberra. Dakota has really impressed me with his independent completion of his learning modules, I really thought he would need more prodding to get his work done. Shay has realized that the initial ‘this is fun’ phase is over, and has resorted to telling me that her last teacher (Mrs Tually) was HEAPS nicer than me! Kalahni is starting to see some results with his school, and is really enjoying it, which is great.
On Sunday we went fishing off the wharf, and what a fantastic day we had! We caught a few little fish to begin with, giving the kids a bit of inspiration to hang around. Then, a great big seal came and played right underneath us. It was soooo cute - an absolutely amazing experience!
As if that wasn’t enough, not long afterward a penguin came scooting through the water underneath us! He was going pretty fast, but we ran up the wharf to catch a glimpse of him shooting off into the harbour. There were plenty
Whale Cure
This was the info about sitting inside the whale carcass to cure RA. of stingrays around also.
Dakota caught a couple of big fish, and he was so proud of himself. We ate them for dinner that night. The little guys and I caught about 30 or so mackerel during the day. Everyone was stoked with the amount of fish we had caught!
Late afternoon a great big thunderstorm came through - we were just about to leave when all of a sudden the fish turned ‘ON’. I’ve heard it talked about, but hadn’t actually ever experienced this phenomenon. It was quite bizarre. We literally dropped our hooks into the water and BANG, a fish jumped on. We didn’t even have bait mostly! Everyone on the wharf was experiencing the same thing - these fish were practically jumping out of the water into our buckets!!! Yet another really cool experience!
Needless to say we had far more fish than we would eat in weeks, so we threw heaps back in, and only took what we would eat. We ate mackerel for the next three days! LOL
Monday we did some more school, then checked out the whale museum. Oh so interesting! Apparently the killer whales used to round up
The Morsecodian
We sent an Original telegram from the Whale Museum. the baleen whales, then come into the harbour to alert the whale fishermen. Sometimes, one particular whale nick named ‘Old Tom’ would become so impatient with how slow the men would be going that he would tow them out, holding the rope in his teeth.
These fishermen would then harpoon these baleen whales from their rowboats, tow them back in, and reward the orca’s with the baleen whales’ tongue (which could weigh up to about 4 tonnes!!!). How Bizarre, hey? Old Tom’s skeleton is in the museum, complete with worn down teeth on one side due to the rope from the boats.
We also went for a drive out to the site where the whales were brought in. The cottage is still there, and so is some of the equipment they used.
Another really interesting tidbit in the whale museum was the fact that the whales were considered to have healing properties. People came from miles to cure their Rheumatoid Arthritis by sitting in a purpose built hole in the still warm whale carcass. Apparently they smelled awful for weeks, but raved about how great they felt! Fancy that hey? Well there were no blubber baths for
us … although I could’ve easily stayed at Eden for a few more weeks we had to get moving.
On to Wilson’s Promontory we went on Wednesday. Wilson’s ‘Prom’, home to ‘Tidal River’, is the in South Eastern corner of Victoria, and is the gateway to the Southern most tip of the Australian mainland. Driving into the National Park, I was actually quite taken aback with the beauty of the coastline there. To be honest, I expected some rugged, wind blown, uninhabitable terrain. Instead, driving over one of the ridges, I was surprised to see pristine white sand, along a very pretty coast. It certainly did have an element of ruggedness, but it was really beautiful.
We only stayed there overnight. The walk to the Southern point is a 12 hour return trip, so we didn’t do that. We just enjoyed the beautiful beaches, and lovely short walks around.
Next Stop … Yarraville.
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Ian Hogan
non-member comment
Fishy!
Hello Trudy and all, Enjoyed your next installment. I remember seeing a doco on Eden and the whaling and thinking it would be a great place to visit. Well, there YOU are! That fishing phenomenon you described is also something I'd heard about but never from someone who ACTUALLY experienced it. It sounded so amazing. Can't wait to hear what happens next. Keep having fun! Yours, Ian.