22 July 2016 Friday

Today I visited Australia’s last operational whaling station in Albany, West Australia. Closed for good in 1978 it still has some interesting tales to tell. Put a lot of people out of work, for good reason and it appears that the local population supported the closure. The entire station is open to the public, even the whale oil storage tanks are utilized as media centers to show how it was done: Not pretty.

 Lots of distasteful pictures of the slaughter, many stories of heroic actions taken by whalers to save lives of other whalers and others as well. A special group of people that were supplying a demand for an oil that didn’t smoke or stink..

Spent the night in Albany, pretty cool down here at night,10C last night, had to pull out my emergency blanket.

23 July Saturday

Drove a ways Saturday to get to the Valley of the Giants and Tree Top Walk.  The tree top walk is not for those afraid of heights. Not sure how high I was but high enough to ask myself ‘why am I doing this”. Next I went for a walk among these giant trees. Not as big as the Redwoods in CA, but bigger than the Douglas Fir in WA. Let the pictures do the talking.

23 July 2016 Saturday

Spent the day at the National ANZAC Center. A memorial for the Australian and New Zealand volunteers to WW1 and to the heroic acts at Gallipoli and elsewhere. This memorial is large,has a lot of WW1 artifacts. The roads are lined by tree planted by relatives to honor thier loved ones. Each tree has brass plaque with a soldiers name and rank. Similar to what use to be Victor Memorial Drive in Mpls. A popular place I'm guessing from the number of people  here.

24 July 2016

Spent the day driving. Started out at a RV park in Ravensthorpe, WA. Drove about 650 km (360mi) to get to a rest stop 50 km East of Balladonia, WA.

Saw my first Emu; big birds! Had 3 or 4 little ones with him and wasted no time getting off the shoulder and into the bush when saw me slowing down. The Emu is the ultimate gift you can give the brides Mother as a dowry type thing in the Aboriginal Culture. Part of their betrothal process. 

Lots of Rape seed (canola) grown around here. You can drive for miles and see nothing but the yellow fields as far as you can see. All of a sudden it becomes miles of sheep, then miles of tilled fields ,then miles of Green freshly planted something ?, then more miles of yellow fields. I had an idea what was going on but stopped to ask a sheep herder. With a barely understandable accent he explained it has to do with how the planting and harvesting machinery is moved about..

Ended todays journey on Australia’s longest straight highway. 140+ km of perfect straight road. About 90 Miles. Staying at a Rest Stop in the Outback. Black hardly describes how dark it gets out here. It is cloudy tonight but nearly a full moon above so it isn’t that black. Haven’t seen many of these since the Northern Territory.

26 July 2016 Tuesday

 Spent most of the day driving through the outback. Nothing new just the absence of human activity. Stopped at place called “ Head of Bight” of the Great Australian Bight Marine Park. It was worth it. Observed 4 Mothers with their newborns in pristine water. A place where this whale comes to have their young. A sight to see for sure. Took many pictures and when I find some WIFI some pictures will be be on the blog. Australia claims the same as Alaska “the last Frontier”. So far I’d call it even!

Drove some more and staying at the Penong Roadhouse. Still heading for Coober Pedy. The underground city. A goal of this trip.
Thought I'd throw in some outback table fare.