Albany 1

Friday 14^th October

Albany is a city of about 40,000 people.  It is situated on a large harbour called King George Sound.  It was settled in 1832 and was the first European settlement in Western Australia. In its early days it was an important whaling port, and was in fact the last operational whaling station in Australia when it closed in 1978.  Today it is an important port for the local timber and farming industry.

After setting up camp we went into town to the visitors centre.  We already knew about its whaling history, but were surprised to find out it was an important staging post for Australian and New Zealand troops leaving for the First World War.  In fact, for troops sailing from New Zealand, this was their last port of call before continuing on to the war in Europe.  Convoys of Troopships from New Zealand called in at Albany where the troops trained with their fellow Australian Soldiers before heading off to the battlefront as the Anzac Corp. 

We saw photos of the New Zealand troop ships anchored in King George Sound, and New Zealand Troops marching through the streets of Albany. 

It suddenly dawned on me that my namesake Urban and his brother Leonard, both probably spent time here on their way to a war from which they never returned.

To commemorate the role Albany played during this time, a memorial to the New Zealand and Australian World War 1 soldiers, has been erected on a hill overlooking the town and the harbour where the troop ships were moored.

An another hill overlooking the harbour, are fortifications that were first of all dug in the late 1800’s , for defence purposes, and then later enlarged and improved during both world wars.  The Australian Governments of the day obviously believed Albany and its harbour to be a very important strategic position in its defences.

Besides the information about the war, the lady at the visitors centre also gave us plenty of details about other things to see and do around the city. These included a couple of sites on the south coast called The Gap and a Natural Bridge, and also some blowholes. So we had plenty to do.

Leaving the visitors centre, we headed up the hill to have a look at the War Memorial.  The approach to the Memorial was through an Avenue of Remembrance, where rows of trees had been planted, each with a fallen soldier’s name on a plaque under it.  As we walked up the path to the memorial itself, we saw several large black lizards basking in the sun.

The Memorial overlooks the bay where the troop ships had been moored, and it was quite nostalgic to look out over the bay where the troopships had been moored, and think of the young men from the same Dudley Road Farm as I had grown up on, full of adventure, off to join a war which they knew little about, and from which they would never return.  It was nice to see New Zealand Soldiers remembered this far from home.

From the memorial Hill we went to the nearby Fortress Hill, which had been established as a defence position.  Presently under the control of the Australian Navy, there were several guns on display, some of which were still operable.  Needless to say, Cameron had lots of fun manning these guns. We walked through underground bunkers and communication tunnels and saw some of the huge guns installed to overlook and defend the harbour.

The road between our camp and the city centre travelled alongside a small lake and there were warning signs with pictures of turtles on them beside the road.  We had some debate as to whether or not they were warning us that turtles crossed the road, or whether it was meant as a warning to drive slowly. 

On the way back to camp we found out, for suddenly there was a long necked turtle quietly plodding across the road.  We had to stop, as he was right in the centre of our lane, and wait for him to get off the road.  We pulled off the road after he had crossed, and got out to have a closer look at him.

Cameron picked him up and was rewarded by the turtle peeing all over his hands.  Cameron later found out that it takes a lot of soap and scrubbing to get the smell of turtle pee off your hands.  A bit further on there was another one in the other lane forcing oncoming traffic to stop.  Needless to say Cameron had no intention of picking this one up.  During our travels we have had to slow down for kangaroos, emus and cattle.  Now we could add turtles to our list.