Day 27 – Perth Albany

April 30, 2005. I got a good night’s sleep and was up at seven to have coffee with Neville and Jackie. Promptly at eight we hit the road for the five hour drive to Albany which is a city of about 30,000 located on the Southern Ocean southeast of Perth.

While the drive was long, time passed quickly as Neville and me got up to date on what’s happened in our lives since we last met in Canada, almost two years ago. We made a stop half way at a former sheep warehouse for gas, coffee and the washroom.

Our objective in driving to Albany was to visit the old Cheynes Beach Whaling Station, which today is a living memorial museum to the days when whaling was the primary industry on the south coast of Western Australia. The station was closed in 1978 when the Australian government put a ban on whaling in the Australian waters.

Two years later the station was turned over to The Jaycee Community Foundation Inc., a not-for-profit community organization. Neville is a director of the foundation. Whale World is Australia’s last remaining whaling station and it reflects the days when the industry was so important to the economy of Australia. The complex offers a unique insight into a whaling station and how it once operated.

The starting point for Whale World is the visitor’s center which contains exhibits, a small store and a restaurant which overlooks Frenchman’s Bay. Beached along side the center is the Cheynes IV whalechaser. It was used as a hunting ship between 1952 and 1978. You can climb aboard and visit the crew quarters, the engine room, and the wheelhouse and see the whale killer gun that is mounted on the bow of the ship. Only the Captain of the ship could fire the gun, so there is a ramp connecting the wheel house of the ship to the bow. When the ship was close to a whale the Captain would run down the ramp and fire the deadly gun.

Next to the ship is the flensing deck, with the original winches, where the whales were hauled up and stripped of their blubber. The blubber and whale carcasses were then hauled to the upper part of the cutting deck which is built over the cookers. The history of those days is enhanced by audio tapes that play back you would have heard in the working factory.

From the flensing deck you move into the processing factory which houses the three huge cookers in which the chunks of whale flesh were cooked and reduced to a thick liquid. Much of the original machinery has been conserved.

Finally, in the last building they have preserved two whale skeletons. The first skeleton is the last of the sperm whales taken by the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company in 1978. Along side it, and much larger, is the 68 foot long skeleton of a Pygmy Blue Whale. Fascinating to see the size of these huge mammals of the sea.

Once you finish visiting the whaling factory, a number of multi-media presentations tell the story of whales, sharks and what life was like for the families and workers at the original station. These presentations are in the huge tanks that stored the whale oil.

If you enjoy history the Whale World is a fascinating trip back to the early days of Australia. It was certainly worth the long drive. The pictures today show the Cheynes IV whale chaser and the skeleton of a sperm whale in the foreground and a Pygmy Blue Whale in behind.  

After discussion the operations of Whale Word with the CEO of Whale World it was time to call it a day and we checked into the Comfort Inn to spend the night in Albany.

The pictures today show the whale chaser Cheynes IV and the two whale skeletons.

Stay tuned for Day 28 in my “Around the World in 30 Days” saga.

Alan Salmon
eClub One