Albany

Day 26
Friday, 27th February, 2009

It's really nice to stay in one place for a few days. This morning I put my bike in for it's 10,000 km service although it's only done a bit over 7,000 kms. The only other option for putting it in for a service was in Perth and they didn't sound particularly impressive so Rosie Phoenix is being looked after by Great Southern Motorcycles.

After riding her in, we travelled into Albany and had a bit of a look around. We decided to go out to see Whale World but before we started heading that way, found an auction. We went in and I registered (there was a lovely little violin I was hoping to pick up for Kier). When I said I was from Tassie, the lady registering me got all excited as she had booked to go to Tassie in May for a holiday. As I was wondering around the auction, another lady came up and said she'd heard I came from Tassie and wanted to know all about it. Turns out she's lady no. 1's partner and they are actually hoping to move to Tassie. It was all a lot of fun, although I didn't get the violin.


Whale World was terrific. It's actually the last whaling station to be closed in Australia with all the machinery etc still there. Our 39 yr old guide told us about an excursion in Grade 3 and visits she'd had to the station when she was a kid. It was amazing. Because the whale processing was land based, she could remember the sea being blood red and plenty of sharks always in the area. She said she'd hated the smell and it stuck to you for about a week no matter how much you washed.



After Whale World, we tried to walk to the Blowhole. It was supposed to be an 800 m walk with 78 stairs. The 78 stairs were fine but the 800 m walk was a load of hogwash. I'm sure we walked further than 800 m and never found any blowhole. The only consolation was that it was good exercise and the water was beautiful.



I forgot to mention that at the beginning of the day, I was talking to a lovely man in the caravan next to us. He has a cat called Pud and has taught him to drink water from the tap. This photo is not very clear, but if you click on it, the photo will enlarge and you might be able to see the water.