The Stirling Ranges & Albany

Sleeping in a tent for a while has the effect of altering your sleeping pattern to match that of the sun. An hour after sunset starts feeling like the middle of the night, and it's near impossible to sleep for long after the sun starts putting it's heat & light into the tent in the morning. The benefit to us (apart from nearly 10 hours sleep every night) was an early start to each day and thus the maximum amount of time to see as much as possible.

From Esperance, we backtracked along the coastal road to Ravensthorpe, before once again, setting tires on roads we hadn't tripped. With another 100 km knocked up, we headed inland on a detour to allow us to pass through the Stirling Ranges on the way to Albany. These are mountains on an Australian level, i.e. barely a sand-fly's hair higher than a kilometre in altitude. There is the option of a 3-4 hour return trip to the high point of Bluff Knoll, but with time against us, we settled for a scenic lunch and moved on again.


Albany is WA's first town, settled in 1826, and famous for being home to Australia's last whaling station. This whaling station was closed in 1978 for economical, not political or sympathetic reasons. Since then, it has been turned into a major (for the area) tourist attraction that has maintained it's authenticity, and provides a view of what went on in bloodier days. Our motivation for going here was from the suggestion of various tourism guides and not for any long-standing desire to see a harbour of death. Nevertheless, it was surprisingly interesting. The admission ticket included unrestricted access to the last whaling ship, Cheynes IV, three cinema shows including a 3D production on the 'Ocean's Giants' (these take place in the large cylinders that previously held the whale oil), various galleries, and rooms displaying skeletons of whales. There is also a free tour taking you through the grim process of finding whales, harpooning them, filling them with air and tagging them with a transmitter and a declaration of killing flag, bringing them back to the station, flencing (removing the oil-rich blubber), and the oil extraction process.

It seems that the main opponents to the success of the whaling station were the sharks that filled the bay surrounding it. As the whale bodies were towed towards the station, sharks would take $100,000 bites out of the blubber with every pass. If a whale was left unattended (no-one shooting the sharks), then it could be stripped to the bone in around 2 hours. I listened to this pleasant fact, whilst staring out into the bay at the mast of the HMAS Perth that protrudes from the surface declaring it's resting place. My intention was to dive this wreck the following day.

The drive home was interrupted with a couple of short visits to some geological attractions in the area, including blowholes, a natural bridge, and the 'gap'. The inconsistency in power of the blowholes provided infinite amusement to Lucie when I was on the receiving end of a Poseidon-powered cough. There was a warning sign stating that it was dangerous to stand within a couple of metres of the holes but as my dear ma' used to proudly say about me when presented with something I shouldn't do, I did it anyway.

The sun then hypnotised us with a farewell dance and we stood transfixed to the rocks before making a slow and careful kangaroo-less drive back to the campsite.