Albany and its wild weather

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This is our fourth night in Albany, we decided to stay 4 as the caravan park gave us a deal to pay for 3 and stay 4 nights, and as there is so much to see here we decided to take the deal.

The first couple of days and nights in Albany were very very wet, with rain, hail and lots of wind. We figured we were actually experiencing Albany's proper winter, I am just soooo glad we didn't tent again this year!!

On the first day we went to see Whale World, which is an ex whaling station that closed in 1978, having been the last one to close in Australia. While there we learned about the whaling history of the area, and saw where they brought theminto the station and how they cut them up and made the oil. It was all very gruesome, but now Albany's Whale World promote anti whaling, and teach what beautiful creatures they are. We got to see some skeletons of some whales that had beached themselves and died. The biggest being a pigmy blue whale which was 72 feet long (the proper blue whales are 90 to 100 feet long), it was huge still! It was an excellant museum.

After Whale World we went to look at some other attractions including the blow holes, which because of the wild weather were blowing, very awesome. The giys got a little too close to the holes and wild waves that caused some panic from us girls, but the guys assured us afterwards that they were not close to the edge and were very safe........ hmmmm looked pretty scary. After that we went to Natural bridge and the Gap. The Natural Bridge is rock that looked like a bridge, where the waves crashed under. The Gap is long cut out in the rock and the waves go along (like a hall way) and crash onto the back wall. Because of the wild weather, the waves were thundering down the gap and then smashing on the back wall causing water spray to go all over us standing at the look out and also all over the carpark and our cars, it was awesome to see.

The next day we visitied the harbour. Albany is a harbour town and was the second town established in WA. During World War 1, many of the Anzacs left from Albany to head overseas to fight. Overlooking the harbour on Mount Clarence and Mount Adelaide is a fort that started getting built in the late 1800's to protect Albany from war. During the wars most of Australia's and New Zealands fighting ships were docked in Albany's harbour to ready to take troops to war. There is alot of military history here, we went through the fortress which included bunkers, canon's, guns and oher military buildings. It was all very interesting and lots of stuff to read. From Mt Clarence lookout we saw something out in the distance, upon closer inspection through the binoculars we could see it was a submarine, we watched it come in and stop at a little boat where some people in bright orange came up top and met with the people on the boat, then the sub left again. We all thought up some scenarios of what it was doing..........but I guess we will never really know.

That afternoon we looked at the Brig Amity museum which is a replica of a boat by the same name that was a regular visitor to Albany when it first became a colony. Moving around on the boat was quite cramped and parts of the boat you had to stay ducked down because the spaces were so small. We all looked quite funny as we had to carry this thing around our necks and when we reached a numbered part of the ship you punched the number into then held it to your ear. We all looked like yuppies from the nineties, standing listening on our huge mobile phones lol,

Afterwards we went for a tour of the sandlewood factory, it was quite interesting but very strong smelling.

At 6.18am this morning we got a phone call from Nathan's Mum to tell us Nina had Celsea Kate at about 7.30am. pretty cool us knowing before she even had her :P (WA time is 2 hours behind QLD time) Today we had a relaxing day, some went fishing, some riding, we caught up on maintenance stuff and did washing. I started and finished a book. Tomorrow we will head for Denmark and Walpole where the big trees are, that will be very different to what we have seen so far.

Till next time.

Nathan's proverb of the day: If a man loudly blesses his neighbour early in the morning it will be taken as a curse. Proverbs 27 verse 14

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Photos

Blow Hole
The water spraying out of the blow holes. These holes only work in the right weather conditions, we got to see them at their best.

The Gap
The huge waves and sea spray thundering down the Gap.

Pigmy Blue Whale
The Pigmy Blue Whale that died and washed up on a beach near Albany. They towed it back to Whale World and carefully prepared it by burying it under sand dunes for a couple of years which removes all traces of flesh.