Day 73 - Albany and the Anzac centre

Oceania » Australia
June 19th 2015

Published: June 19th 2015

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Rob and Lynns Bago bash

Albany - Anzac Centre

Many steps to climb to get to this memorial, thats Rob up there

We've had a mixed day today, sight seeing, history lessons and lots of travel. After we packed up this morning we went into the city of Albany to have a look around. Its a very pretty city, really quite big and many older historical buildings. Looks like its had plenty of money back in the day. There's a very, very large parklands in the middle of the city, Mt Clarence. It's very high above the sea and the lookouts are fabulous. But it primarily houses the Anzac memorials. They have a very, very long Avenue of Honour where every tree has a plaque of a person who died in war, not sure but think they are from the local area.

At the top of the Avenue of honour is a really large monument for the light horse brigade in World War 1. It was originally in Port Said in the 20’s but was wrecked in the Suez Canal crisis. So the pieces were collected and brought back to Australia and resurrected in the 60’s. Great story.

The Anzac Centre is on the other side of this park and it’s seriously amazing. Of course Albany was the place where all

Albany - Anzac Centre

Its a beautiful statue of soldiers and horses, and very very big.

the troops went from back in 1914 and the centenary celebrations were massive here, earlier this year. So I’m sure the centre was built mainly for that reason. But it’s superb. You get an audio guide on the way through, but you also get a random card with a soldiers name on it. As you go around you put the card on certain stations and the walls light up with the story of your soldier. How he enlisted, where he was from, his journey throughout the war, and his eventual death. It makes the war story so much more personal. My soldier was from New Zealand and was wounded at least 3 times. But I was very glad to find that he survived the war and lived till he was 76, with a wife and 6 kids. He had a good life post war, but had strong opinions about war in general after that. Not a fan. Robs soldier actually committed suicide after the war was over.. Not such a good ending.

But it was a fabulous way to follow the story of the war. It’s a brilliant concept, very very impressed.

After a bit of lunch we

Albany - Anzac Centre

And this one was stunning! A real work of art. Horses played a huge roll in the wars

were heading off, but luckily we found the Dog Rock! This area is a bot weird, in that massive rocks just seem to appear out of nowhere. The city is kind of built around them, haven’t seen anything like it in our travels, it’s hard to explain. But there’s one particularly famous one, called dog rock. The story attached to it is that a family who settled in the Albany area in the 1800’s, left their young daughter asleep in the house with their dog, while they went to greet the mail ship. They came back soon after to find some natives were surrounding the girl. The parents screamed and ran and the dog snapped and growled at the natives. They reacted by throwing spears at it, and Victor the dog was killed. He was buried and a wild storm washed the grave away. Next day, the rock ‘appeared’! It’s probably a myth, but the locals like to tell this as the truth. It’s a very revered rock, and looks fabulously like an old lab we once knew…Beauy dog! (See the pictures)

So we’ve travelled most of the afternoon because we wanted to get as close to Esperance as

Albany - Anzac Centre

A place to contemplate the sacrifice

possible. Rob did very well and we have camped at a free camp near a town called Munglinup! Luckily it’s not so cold tonight so we didn’t need power to keep warm. Esperance and hopefully Lucky Bay tomorrow.

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