Today, we repeated much of our sighseeing of a few days ago, except we were joined by our son David with Yuki and our grandsons, Orin and Koa. It was a good family day together.
We met them in the morning at the Brig Amity on the foreshore where we spent an hour looking at the replica ship and some of the old buildings there at the site of first settlement.
From there, we drove back to The Gap and Natural Bridge. The weather wasn’t as kind to us as the other day with rain squalls and winds up to 50 kmh. We took advantage of a break in the weather to brave it out to the two lookouts. While the weather conditions were unpleasant the views were spectacular with wild waves and surf pounding the coast..
The main attraction for the day was at Cheynes Beach – a defunct whaling station now known as Albany’s Historic Whaling Station. It is situated on Frenchman Bay in King George Sound and fortunately was in the lee of the headland. It was built in the 1950s, and operated until 1978.
The museum has a small photo display of some of the characters who worked on the whale catchers. I’m sure that these people must have had some stories to tell!
Whalers had been operating at this location in the 1840s and a commercial fishing operation was established there in 1920. Whaling recommenced there in the early 1950s and the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company was formed. Operations were very industrial with a number of large steel and concrete sheds and workshops, smaller timber-framed offices and amenities buildings along with tanks and boilers. The flensing deck was built over a natural rock slipway with steam winches installed further up the shore to haul the carcasses onto the deck (as shown in this old photo from the Whaling Station)
In 1954 the station produced over 1,016 tonnes of whale oil, the product of 120 whales over the entire season. Following a disastrous season in 1962 with record low catches the International Whaling Commission ended whaling of humpbacks from Antarctic stocks so the company commenced hunting sperm whales instead. Whaling continued from the station until 1978 when the last whale was legally caught in Australian waters. A total of 1136 humpbacks and 14,695 sperm whales were caught from the station between 1952 and 1978. THe oil was stored in giant tanks which boggle my mind as to how many whales needed to be slaughtered in order to fill them.
The station operated a small fleet of whale chasers, most notably the Cheynes line of four steamers. Only one remains and it is beached to serve as a museum ship.
Engine Room
Harpoon on the bow
Forward deck and mast with crows nest at the top of the mast.
The last of these, the Cheynes IV, was a steam powered whaler built in 1948 by Framnaes Mek Vaerksted in Norway. She was powered by a 4 cylinder steam engine generating 1,750 horsepower. The ship initially worked for the Union Whaling Company in South Africa, where she served until 1967. In 1969, she was brought here to Albany. The journey from South Africa took 17 days. In 1981, a group of locals, beached the whaler where it remains today. .
We spent a good few hours at the Whaling Station. The oil tanks, long empty, have been turned into mini theatres with one showing a 3D movie about the life of whales. One of the workshops now contains a whale skeleton and there is a small cafe. The souvenir shop sells a range of memorabilia.
Our final stop for the day was back at the windfarm. With the strong wind, the turbines were turning at full speed. I timed the rotaion of the closest one at one complete revolution every three seconds.
The surrounding scrub has a nmber of plants in flower that are quite colourfull.
I have been reluctant to include photos of our Perth Family in case David and Yuki preferred not to show the kids on social media. A conversatiomn this morning lcleared that so I am including a few photos that I was holding back.
