Whales

We've been hard at work exploring Albany and its surrounds, or as hard as possible once you have settled into a routine of rising at 9.30.

We climbed to the top of Mount Frankland ( the summit of which is used for firewatching ) via a couple of steep ladders, just in time to be drenched by an intense rain storm. We then drove back to Albany uncomfortably steaming in the car. Between the showers we did a walk at Shellys beach, and were thrilled to see a vague grey shape in the water. It is one thing to see a whale on a specific tour, but we did quite a bit of mutual backslapping at our cleverness -or luck on this occasion.

The following day, working our way through a list of National Parks, we headed for Waychinicup National Park, about 30 kilometres west of Albany. After a half hour walk from the carpark, we followed an extremely rutted track to the point at which it rounded a headland. Armed with our experience of the previous day, Cecile pointed at the sea breaking over a semi submerged rock, and asked tentatively "That is not a whale is it ?" I said "No, but that is !" as a monster surfaced just beneath the cliff we were standing on. All of a sudden there was not one, or two or three whales, but dozens. They were swimming mostly in twos, one large, and one small, and we think that we had stumbled upon a nursery. Every so often, one would hurl itself out of the water, and come down with a loud crash, then two would reverse their position, sticking their tails in the air, and repeatedly slapping the water. To give you an indication of the scene, at one point Cecile and I were focusing our attention on a couple crossing our viewpoint from left to right, and as we stared right, we only became aware of another large one close by on our left when he let out a roar when spouting. Close up, the noise they make is remarkable, like a cross between a steam train and an elephant - and loud ! We sat perched on some rather unforgiving granite boulders, amongst the wildflowers for what seemed like a few moments. A quick look at our watch confirmed that we had been enthralled for over two hours. As we walked back to the car, we stopped occasionally and looked out to sea. There were whales everywhere, a little further out they seemed to congregate in large groups, with great masses of spouts. We both have to admit that our photographs do not do the event justice. We are making plans for a picnic revisit tomorrow.

You know, whaling is big business here, and there is an excellent museum full of exhibits and audio-visual horrors documenting the whaling industry and its demise. Whale watching is a tourist bonanza, with local operators getting good publicity from the media spruiking their cruises. For example it was big news recently when a blue whale was sighted locally. I did however find a small news report buried amongst local government tenders and phone sex offers at the back of the newspaper. Apparently, the captain of a charter boat had been successful in locating a couple of mothers and their calves, unfortunately the arrival of the tourists coincided with the arrival of a pod of killer whales who proceeded to rip the babies to bits, leaving a boat load of traumatised sightseers drifting in a sea of blood. Nature red in tooth and claw, I suppose.