The Great Western Escape: Albany

Blow hole

Albany is a beautiful seaside town, surrounded by national parks. There is so much to see! We ventured to the blow hole, which the sound alone was pretty awesome and powerful. Frightened the living daylights out of me. Firm grip on the boys this day.

Jacob & Zachary at blow hole

Wind turbines

Like Esperance, Albany also has a wind turbine farm. We were there late in the afternoon just to captured the western sunset on the wind turbine farm.

Whale world

Albany was the last working whaling station to be decommissioned on the 21st November, 1978. The whaling station has been turned into a museum. Quite an emotional journey of whaling and also the families that worked here and the loss of jobs overnight.

Chart room

The tour of the ship gave an incredible insight to the men that work at sea.

Ships steering

The boys loved exploring the whaling ship. They also couldn't decide who should steer the ship. There is a huge pull on the steering wheel going on. Just look at Zachary's face and determination.

Sperm whale skeleton

This particular sperm whale has a heart as big as a small car. The sperm whales vein could fit the size of Jacob inside.

Cutting up deck

This is the cutting up deck where the whales were processed and fed into the cookers. You can faintly see six round shapes toward the front of the shed pictured behind the boys. You can also see just past the shed into the water and see Flat rock (just above the second sheds window).

Retrieval boat

This boat was used to transport the whales from flat rock to the flensing deck. On one particular day there was a shark frenzy eating spree, with an estimate of 200 sharks in the bay. On this shark infested day, a whale carcass was all that was left from pulling the whale in from flat rock to shore. The above boat was powered by two men who reportedly had guns to kill off sharks. Every inch of the whale was so valuable that they would even kill the sharks to retrieve the blubber.