20 July 2013 - Big4 Albany Gardens Holiday Resort, Albany, Western Australia

It is inevitable when one travels in winter, particularly in this part of the southern hemisphere, that the weather will sometimes discourage exploration. This morning was such a one; we shilly-shallied all morning, the lunch packed last night in readiness for an early departure but with frequent downpours, we could not bring ourselves to head out. Our plan had been to head north into the Stirling Ranges and do some serious walking, perhaps up the highest peak in the southern half of Western Australia. Well of course, it’s easy to say that, given we abandoned our plans. Instead Chris went out into the rain for the weekend newspapers and I spent some time doing urgent paperwork which had been put off for far too long. But after lunch, we did head out, the rain having cleared although the skies still grey and the temperatures too low for comfort.

We headed out to Whale World situated in Frenchman Bay in the southern corner of King George Sound, having been told that this was a must-do, and as we neared our destination, we debated, as usual, how much we were prepared to pay for the entry. We settled on a figure that was about double what I expected or hoped, but on arrival found the entry fee twice that threshold. We looked at each other, shrugged and paid up, and were glad in the end we had not been as pig-headed as we sometimes are.

This is the site of the old Cheynes Beach Whaling Station, which operated from 1952 through to late 1978. When I mentioned those dates to Chris yesterday, he insisted I must be wrong; we think of whaling as an activity of the early 19^th century not something that began and ended in the last. But I was right, again.

Whaling was Albany’s (and indeed Australia’s) oldest industry, and well before official settlement took place, British, French and American whalers visited these shores. Interestingly many of the ships which brought convicts out to the Antipodes were whalers, which would unload their human cargo and then carry on whaling. Lateral thinking and diversification are not just catch-cries of modern times!

Major Edmund Lockyer, the first permanent settler of Albany, came ashore in December 1826 with a party of soldiers and convicts from New South Wales. Their transport was one such, a ship which later became a whaler.

Old whaling reached a peak around 1845 when there were approximately three hundred whaling ships, mostly American, and numerous shore stations operating along the South Coast of Australia. After petroleum was discovered in 1859 in Pennsylvania, offering an alternative to whale oil, the whaling ship numbers declined with only a handful remaining after the turn of the century. And of course this is why we were baffled about the dates for the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company’s operations.

The company operated three chasers and a spotter aircraft which operated on the continental shelf just twenty or thirty miles off shore. In 1954, the whale quota of 120 was taken in eighty one days and in 1955, the same quota in sixty six days. Between 1963 and 1978, 12,625 sperm whales were caught, with the best year being 1974 when 1,147 sperm whales were delivered to the flensing deck.

In later years the company’s profit relied on a quota of 1000 whales per annum; there were often up to twenty harpooned and brought back to the whaling station for processing at any one time. Off shore, a flat rock island bearing bollards and pontoons, provided temporary storage for the dead whales, inflated with air to keep afloat, and often providing fodder for schools of frenzies feeding sharks. The bay was often a bloody mess, as gruesome as the flensing deck onshore.

It was good to learn that the entire whale was made use of; after the oil was rendered, the remains was crushed and dried into a high protein powder which was added to stock and poultry food. Our guide was possibly a past protester or even a supporter of the current Sea Shepard campaign; she was not open to my comments suggesting that past actions were often appropriate for their times and should not necessarily be judged by today’s standards. I had been impressed there was no wastage, grasping at a positive, in my normal Pollyanna manner.

It could be argued that Greenpeace style pressure and a depressed market for the whale oil put paid to the industry, but it was in fact the cost of petroleum used to fuel the whale chaser vessels as they went out hunting. Each chaser used one ton of fuel per hour, enough to turn any profit to major losses. On top of that the three whale chasers were all due for replacement and at $6 million dollars apiece, it was decision time.

The Cheynes IV, now beached

In December 1978, the Malaysian freighter Bunga Kesumba arrived in Frenchman Bay to load the last shipment of whale oil to be exported from Albany and Australia. Fifteen hundred tons of sperm whale oil was loaded bound for Rotterdam. When the company closed its doors after the last shipment of whale oil, 121 people lost their jobs, their 208 dependents and all the support services of the town plunged into an uncertain future.

The whaling station was opened for tourism in the 1980s, however during the first couple of decades the reek of whale oil was enough to send most far away. Fortunately the extra years have served to send the residual stench off and today Albany can be very proud of this tourist attraction.

We took advantage of the free guided tour which is offered at the top of every hour, then wandered about enjoying the films, the hologram show, the various museums exhibiting whale skeletons, relics of whaling years over the centuries, stories of past employees, a wander all over the Cheynes IV (sitting up on the beach since 1981) and so much more.

In fact the afternoon passed far too quickly and we expressed our dismay to the ticket takers in the shop as we left, lamenting the fact we had arrived far too late in the day. They took our names and invited us to return and complete our exploration tomorrow. The brochures suggest that one should put two or three hours aside for doing the place justice; we would suggest the better part of a day. However the weather report suggests there is only a small window of good weather this week, tomorrow, and we do still hope to walk in the Stirling Ranges. We will see what the morning brings.