Hardly an interesting tourist journal today, mainly spent attending to mountains of laundry, a visit to the supermarket, having the gas bottle refilled at BCF, a trip which always results in other bits and pieces being bought as well, a haircut for me and the landcruiser booked in for another 10,000 kilometre service; all mundane chores but all essential. We also booked in for a further four days in addition to the initial four, to facilitate the vehicle service and the execution of walks, places and things to do all about Albany.
This afternoon, we did find time to drive out to Emu Point, a north-eastern suburb of Albany situated on the point between Oyster Harbour and King George Sound. We walked around the waterfront, both a little way along that inside the very sheltered harbour, and along the wilder seashore of the Sound, from where we watched a large cargo vessel make its way out past Michaelmas Island and Breaksea Island, the late afternoon sunshine reflected off the hulk.
We drove back home via Middleton Beach and around past the Port below Mt Adelaide, looking out over the Princess Royal Harbour. We stopped at the lookout over Ataturk Entrance, renamed in 1985 in honour of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, the Founder and First President of modern Turkey whose brave soldiers fought the ANZACs at Gallipoli in 1919. Those same ANZAC troops left Australia from here at Albany, hence the connection which would otherwise be rather obscure to the average tourist.
In fact Albany hosted thirty six troop ships here in King George Sound in October 1914 which carried twenty thousand Australian soldiers from the eastern states and ten thousands New Zealand soldiers, to Egypt before they were sent on to the shores of Gallipoli and the battlefields of France. Western Australian soldiers left from Freemantle.
Two months later a second convoy assembled here and transported another ten thousand Australian and two thousand New Zealand soldiers.
Over nineteen thousand Australians and eight thousand New Zealanders from these convoys never returned home, although I can report that my maternal grandfather did, thus allowing the eventual begetting of yours truly.
It was also from here that 7,479 horses were carted off to war, none having volunteered and only one known to have returned; a sad fact that is often overlooked.
The day was turning cold and we headed back through the town centre and to camp, vowing that tomorrow would be spent travelling further afield and doing some serious exploration of Albany and surrounds.
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