Log One Hundred and Four – Whalers and Walers

5 August 2024

At the Albany ANZAC memorial we learned some 12,000 Walers were sent to the Middle East as part of our contribution to WW1. These were horses bred in New South Wales hence the name. Many were used in the last great calvary charge in modern warfare. That event was of course the charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba in 1917. Some eight hundred horses were in that charge. Beersheba is not that far from the modern day Gaza Strip. Of the 12,000 horses sent to WW1 only one returned to Australia.

The other group of a Whalers based in Albany and this time spelt with an ‘H’ had nothing to do with horses. These guys hunted whales and between 1952 and 1978 something like 16,000 whales were hunted and processed at the Albany whaling station. This industry only stopped in 1978.

It was a pretty grizzly industry that nearly wiped out the whale population around this coast. An old whaler who now volunteers as a guide described days when over 20 whales were taken by one boat, in one day.

Walking around the old whaling station you can only imagine the smell, the noise and general unpleasantness of the whole scene. The one group that seemed to thrive in this environment were the great white sharks that tore into the whale carcasses that were waiting to be processed.

The whalers targeted sperm whales after the hunting of humpback whales was banned. The big attraction was the oil produced from these whales. It has some very unique characteristics namely it doesn’t boil nor does it freeze. Whale oil was used for precision instruments, space travel and even as an additive in automatic transmission oil. I am so glad synthetic alternatives have been developed and there is no longer a commercial need to hunt these amazing animals.

Today we were able to watch whales on their annual migration, breaching just off the cliffs. What a different experience to yesterday.

The lookouts we were enjoying were established on 3.3 billion year old rocks. This was a time when our road trip could have included North America. The age of these rocks did give us confidence that the platform built out over the cliffs and bolted to these rocks was secure.

My personal insight for today was my amazement or maybe amusement of those who come to see this amazing coastline and yet spend their entire visit photographing themselves. Is this just evidence of modern vanity, self obsession or just plain old narcissism? I don’t get it and the last person I want to photograph is me!

Tomorrow our easterly journey continues …..