Leaving Busselton for Walpole & Albany

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Hi All,

It's Friday 15th October and I am leaving Busselton to travel through some of the timber country to the southern and south west coastal area of West Australia. The first short stop was at Pemberton, a small township near the south coast, which is surrounded by some 4,000 hectares of National Parks mainly containing the remaining natural areas of the giant Karri Trees.

The road touches on the edge of some of the Karri forrests and these small pockets of forrest were spectacular. On the road there was little oportunity to stop, but the overall impresion was still there as you drove through. Where the forrests have been extensively "havested" over the years, the countryside appears diverse, with farms (dairy) and even grape growing areas, as well as some crop farming and "new" regrowth areas.

The forrests were originally cleared for farming, mainly dairying, and of course the timber was used extensively in building and export to interstate and overseas.

Moving on from Peberton I arrived at my next overnight stay at Coalmine Beach, Walpole. A charming area as Walpole is totally surrounded by national park, and is the only part of the south west where forrests actualy extend to and meet the coastline. The town itself was only established in the early 1930's to relocate and settle in a rural environment, city dwellers who lost jobs and homes during the great depression. It was NOT a success.

Next morning I left Walpole and drove a short distance to "The Valley Of The Giants, in the Walpole-Nornalup national park, which hosts a large area of the giant "Tingle Trees" in it's original natural environments. These trees live for hundreds of years, can grow to over 100 metres in height, and are quite massive. The forrest areas where they grow have heavy undergrowth, and periodic naturally ocurring bush fires pass through.

These bush fires do not usualy kill the Tingle trees, but oftern burn a hole in the base of the tree trunk. Repeated fires over hundreds of years have left many of the older trees with "holes" big enough to stand in and walk through, while the trees themselves are still living and indeed growing.

The highlight of this park is an arial walkway which has been constructed as a circular "tree top walk". In parts it is over 40 metre above ground, and you look down onto trees. see tree tops at eye level and can still look up towards the tops of the largest and highest tres in the area. Absolutely mind blowing views and impressions.

Adjacent to this is a ground level walk, called the "Ancient Empire Walk", which winds through a stand of giant Tingle trees, many of them with the "burnt out " bases, in various stages, from a first partial burn through to completely holowed out bases due to repeated bushfire damage. This was also truly magnificent, and really words cannot describe the majesty and natural beauty of the scene. So you need to visit and see for yourself!!

After this viewing I continued on another 140 kms or so east to Albany where I was to stay for the next 3 nights. Not many people, including Travelling Pete I am sad to say, know that Albany is in fact the place of the FIRST permanent white settlement in what is now Western Australia. On Boxing Day 1826, a group of soldiers and convicts, were sent west from NSW to establish a penal settlement, and this was some 3 years before the Swan River Settlement was founded.

Another thing that Albany is famous or remembered for, is that in both World Wars, the last piece of Australia seen by our soldiers going over to Gallipolli, and France and the middle east and Malaya, was Albany town and port, where the troop conveys were assembled and sailed from. Many scores of thousands of course never saw Australia again.

Albany was also a major port and centre for the whaling industry from the 1940's to 1978, when whaling from this point ended abruptly, not due to public outcry or international pressure OR official Commonwealth or State legislation, but soley to the fact it became uneconomic due to a combination of increased fuel costs due to the OPEC oil crisis of that year, rapidly increasing crew wages, the ageing whaling fleet needed to be replaced, and rapidly dwindling whale numbers meant it took boats longer at sea to catch sufficient whales. Thank goodness for all these things happening at once, otherwise whales in this area may well have been hunted to extinction.

I am pleased to report whale numbers have and continue to recover in the area and whale watching is a big event here, both from commercial boats, and even from coastal viewing. These whales transit the south and west coasts of west Australia upto and pass Geraldton each year, and are distinct populations from those travelling on the east coast of Australia.

To be fair I must mention that Australian governemnts have now banned whaling in all Australian waters and are leading the world to secure a world wide ban on killing whales for food and oil. These bautiful animals are the largest mamals ever to have lived on earth, and originally were land dwelling mamals before evolution took them into the ancient seas.

The original whaling station at Albany has been preserved as a museum and it should be a must on any visit to Albany, not only for the history of whaling, the economic importance at one time to the city, but also because of the story of the evolution of whale over millions of years that is told here.

Albany is also near a number of national parks, boasts spectacular coastal views, is a pretty and old town in it's own right and there is much to satisfy any tourist or traveller.

My next major trip to be the subject of the next blog will to be Esperance, the last coastal place I will see in West Australia, and is about 473 kms by road, east from Albany.

all for now,

TRAVELLING PETE

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Comments

[anonymous]

Hey Pete, I had indeed been to the forests you describe and to Albany. A place of great beauty I remember. At the time I just had a little girl. She was about 15 months old and now she is just 24 and yet I can remember those beautiful places clearly. Mary