DAY 18 – ALBANY – TORNDIRRUP NATIONAL PARK

We spent most of today at Torndirrup National park within which the local whaling station is located. It’s a bit gory but very interesting. Unfortunately I didn’t think to wear the Sea Shepherd T-shirt Tony gave me for my birthday.

Surprise, surprise, I did some work today. I had to go a see a local lawyer to sign some documents which were needed for the office and, surprise, surprise again, he worked on the Gold Coast about 30 years ago and knew quite a number of Gold Coast lawyers. Small world.

The National Park is as spectacular as the others we have seen but in yet another different way. Unfortunately, the blow hole wasn’t performing, presumably because of the lovely calm weather but we could hear the booming of the waves as they broke in the cavern below.

We came across a very popular salmon fishing beach, appropriately called Salmon Holes, apparently because schools of salmon gather behind the rock formations just off the beach to avoid the sharks which like to chase them. Unfortunately no fish were caught while we were watching so I wasn’t tempted to break out the fishing gear.

I ventured into the water late this afternoon when we went for our beach walk as you can see. That’s about as far as I would be prepared to go without a full wetsuit but some locals do swim. It is jeans and jumpers weather in the evening but the days are brilliant, generally around 21 degrees and very little wind.

Barbequed green prawns and crumbed snapper fillets for dinner. What a tough life.