We spent six days in Albany, riding our bikes along bike paths, marvelling at the local wildlife, delving into the whaling history of the place and enjoying the marvellous vistas of the bays. We paddled in the waters of pristine beaches, saw three new birds and watched, horrified as one boat manoeuvring in the marina crashed into another causing damage which made it take on water and cause some blokes around to say that “Fred” would snot him one. They rang him and told him what had happened waking him up in the process as he had gone home for a kip before heading out to sea.
We waited around to see if “Fred” was going to snot him and to see how far the boat would sink. “Fred” duly arrived, did not snot him one, and proceeded to deal with the inconvenient situation in what appeared initially to be a gentlemanly manner. His boat was loaded and ready to take off on a fishing trip for Christmas crabs. The next day we checked out the situation again and found the boat floating, but moored and all the stuff which was on the boat stacked on the pier. We wondered how he got that much stuff loaded to start with. And what would he do if all those pots were filled with crabs? And what about the crab population? And this wasn’t even a big boat! I think I’m glad that the boat got damaged. The boat belonging to the bloke who caused the damage was still sitting in the harbour and we can only hope he was still in one piece and his nose still unbroken.
Tiger snakes. The locals told us that’s what they were. I’ve seen two of them. One when we were riding our bikes. We had to stop and give way. Snakes always have right of way, especially when you don’t know what sort they are but you do know that Australia has LOTS of venomous ones and I wasn’t carrying my snake bite kit. The second one I encountered on the same path, much closer to our caravan park while I was wearing thongs and was coming in from a barefoot walk along the beach. My heart stopped as this black snake with a golden tummy (just like the other one) slithered slowly only a few metres in front of me. I waited patiently while it slithered into the dense undergrowth and its tail disappeared. I went home fairly quickly vowing to take the snake bite kit whenever I travelled near the dense undergrowth again. All subsequent bike rides and bird walks saw me carrying an as yet unused snake bandage. I always take my phone so I can ring someone up. I’m not paranoid though, just a little terrified of being bitten by something serious.
Speaking of being bitten. Did you know that flies bite? I hate them. They are a jolly nuisance and interfere with one’s pleasant exploration of the countryside. March flies are the worst. We went to see the wind farm which supplies the electricity needs of Albany. A very interesting place up a hill you have to climb dotted in many places along the paths with interesting interpretive signs telling the visitor about the Aboriginal understanding of the seasons and the building of this fantastic source of energy. It was built with a 20 year life span in mind and I think that is probably OK in this age of such development. The wind turbines are massive things and the nose cones were carried out here on a convoy of trucks. Only one fitted on the back of each massive truck. That must have been quite a sight! Back to the flies. Out here we encountered march flies like I never have before and they tried to attack our legs constantly. In order to read all this very interesting information you had to mark time, stamping your feet up and down constantly. You couldn’t stop or the flies would land and bite. I became very distressed, hence this trip saw me doing lots of up and down hill exercise very quickly and the photos were taken with not nearly so much thought put into their makeup. We got back to the car park, leapt into the car and just sat, recovering from the attack of the flies. David was much more tolerant and less stressed than I was but then he’s got hairy legs!
We went shopping at a place called Albany Dog Rock and wondered at the strange name, thinking of modern music or something like that. Coming home we saw a rock that looked like a dog’s head. It even had natural colouring where the eye should be. It was a massive rock, not quite Uluru size but taller than a house and we now understood the name of this suburb of Albany. The area has lots of rocky areas and often they are incorporated into the buildings like natural decorations. Mostly they are what makes up all the islands in the harbours and bays of the coastline around King George Sound.
We went for an historic walk around town one day. We looked at all the old buildings which made up the original settlement and were struck by the way in which the community has looked after its history.
The entrance to Princess Royal Harbour
A phone photo of the bandicoot we saw. This is the bike path we rode along every day and where we saw the snakes.
This part of the coastline is called "the gap".
The wind farm. You can't see the flies in the photo!
I like this Aboriginal saying.
The brig Amity which brought the first settlers to Albany in 1826.
In the stocks
Blessings to you all and we'll catch up again in Esperance for Christmas.
