Albany Historic Whaling Station

 Wednesday 16 September - 181767

Today we visited Albany Historic Whaling Station - the last whaling station to operate in Australia. This is a heritage listed site with a lot of information about whales and the whaling industry. There is a restored whale chaser ship that we were able to thoroughly explore, as well as the processing factory that has been renovated. I was surprised to learn that this had been a tourist attraction while it was operational. It was also interesting to learn that several of the whaling captains became involved in whale conservation, one even joined Greenpeace. 

Discovery Bay     Albany Historic Whaling Station

We also visited the adjoins Regional Wildflower Garden and had a tour of local wildflowers with the head gardener.    Regional Wildflower Garden

Last up with visited pretty Frenchman Bay and looked at King George Sound from a different perspective.

Frenchman Bay

9 November - Whale Watching and AQWA

9 November 2016 – 194 926

Whale Watching and AQWA

This morning we once again said farewell to the Turnbulls.  We then headed to Hilarys Boat Harbour for a 8:30am whale watching cruise. 

https://hillarysboatharbour.com.au/ 

https://www.whalewatchingperth.com/

It took about 45 minutes to get to the area where the whales are usually seen on their southern migration (in a triangular area between Hilarys, Fremantle and Rottnest Island); on their northern migrations, when they don’t have young calves travelling with them, they travel on the westerly side of Rottnest Island where the water is deeper.  We saw a large group of dolphins, twenty or so, which hung around the boat for a few minutes.  We also saw Little Island, where seals are known to hang out on the sand.  After a while we were fortunate enough to see and mother and calf humpback whales which allowed us to approach and then chose to come and investigate us, allowing us several views of them.  A little further along we saw a Blue Whale do a deep dive with its tail extending well out the water – quite amazing.  After another short period of time we again spotted mother and calf humpback whales that allowed us to approach.  They came in close and investigated us, after a while they were joined by a second mother and calf pair with an escort male.  We had these five humpback whales move toward and away from the boat repeatedly over a one hour period investigating us – it was amazing.  The whales clearly realize they no longer have anything to fear from the boats as they spent a large amount of time within five to eight metres of the boat.  At one stage I was looking out the other side of the boat watching one of the mother and calf pairs when a whale came up to “blow” about a metre behind me – it certainly made me jump, but gave me a close up look at it!  When this large group finally decided they had finished investigating the humans, we headed back to dry land.  

After a picnic lunch, we visited aqwa. https://www.aqwa.com.au/ This fantastic aquarium was divided into zones to represent the different geographical areas of the Western Australian coastline and the aquatic fauna and flora that can be seen there.  What a big day!