Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 80 - Albany Day 2

There are days when things may seem a little difficult. You know the ones that are a little tougher, you have a close call with a car drive, you can’t sleep, you are restless, everyone annoys you or you potentially feel the world is not quite going your way. Then there are times when all this stuff just comes into perspective. Today was just one of those days.

During the night, the awning flapping has kept Robyn awake, and at midnight she asks me to pull it down for “safety” reasons. Whilst the wind is indeed causing the flapping, it is by no means dangerous, with most of the noise coming from the sea on the other side of the dune. I crawl out of bed and out to the awning, there is no human movement.

I start to take it down and catch my finger in one of the joints. Its stuck there for a moment, until I can work it loose. My finger hurts but there is no damage. The only damage is that in my want to get my finger free I let go of the awning and the release tab folded up out of sight. A problem to be addressed in the morning. I go back to bed. Robyn promises not to snore as a reward for my gallantry.

The reward is short lived.

When we finally arose, the air was cold, and the sky cloudy and grey. The wind that caused the awning issues last night had not abated, and if anything had increased. The first order of business is to get the awning back into some sort of operational standard. Last night when my hand was caught I let it go and the recovery tag disappeared. I need assistance in making this happen as Robyn will not have the strength to help.

Forbsy is wandering around, so I grab him to assist me. Our first attempt is unsuccessful, we simply cannot move it. Trying again and using much more brute force we are able to move the operations back into place. In fact, we arrange for the entire awning to be back as it was when I closed it last night. For the moment the wind is not too bad, so we leave it deployed.

There is confusion as to what we are aiming to do today. Robyn and I need to have jabs for whooping cough so we can see a newborn in Echuca in a couple of weeks. Rosalie wants to get her hair done and Forbsy, just wants to play Forbsy, but does not want to stay in his van.

By the time we get in a position to leave the park, we really only have time to do some shopping before the jab, so we are off to the local shopping centre where a Terry White Chemist is located who will simply do the injection. Apparently, Rosalie has found a salon which has a cancellation and she is booked in for 11.30am, which they think will take too well after 1.00pm to complete.

We head to the shopping centre, having asked Forbsy if he wants to join us, which he does not, he has his own ideas. The shopping this time, is effective enough to complete our holiday, or at least get across the Nullarbor. Spinach for pies, lots of chicken pieces for roasting and holding for lunches and cheeses and dips as well as lots of water and drinks, to keep us going.

The Terry White Chemist is manned by very customer focussed staff. Joe, the pharmacist in charge, is an ex-pat pom, young but reassuringly, confident in his approach, although when we question after our arrival, he heads off to ensure the vials of the vaccine are available. It is, and we start the paperwork and the process required to make the injection done. This injection will be registered on our medical record so it can be accessed by our doctors.

He goes over the issues we may face, an anaphylactic reaction for one in a million, or at least joint pain. I tell him of my difficulty in keeping my medications down and the need for Nexium to assist with that. He suggests reassuringly that this is not a problem. The jabs are done, without any undue pain and we retire to the shopping centre as required under the 15 minute after jab protocol (to ensure there is not an immediate reaction), to wander the shops.

I jokingly suggest to some friends that Robyn has had a reaction, having walked into a dress shop and liked the first thing she sees, an amazing event, and never heard of. I go next door and order tea and an iced chocolate. The Iced chocolate is a disappointing, chocolate milk with a dollop of ice cream and ice cubes. This is not the way to make iced chocolate, but more and more coffee shops serve it up. Don’t they realise there are people other than coffee drinkers.

Apparently not, as the sign at the front suggests – the test I just had, found traces of blood in my coffee. At the end of the day it is a coffee shop but……

All happy, we head back to the can to unpack the groceries. When we arrive the awning is back into place, Perhaps Silver Leader of Forbsy has seen the wind has picked up and dealt with it, before they have gone out – no, as we unpack, our neighbour comes across and tell us he has retracted the awning. We thank him and move on with the rest of our day.

With the others out and about, we are wanting to just wander. I head out the front and turn left. Immediately we are on a Tourist Drive, that can’t be bad. First chance we stop and take picture of the wind-swept harbour. A little further on we stop again as there are signs talking about the view. There are lots of pictures to take from the elevated positions.

A little further on we go pass the new ANZAC war memorial. This place was the departing place for the first and second convoys of troops to World War I. Silver Leader wants to confirm one of his ancestors left for the war from here. This we will leave for later, for now we want to just wander.

The tourist drive is taking us along. Firstly, down to the port, looking at sand piles, grain and wood chip conveyors as well as silo art on the containment areas. There is a fuel dump, and I take a photo of the water tank used for fire containment, mainly because it says “Fire Water” on the side of the tank, conjuring up thoughts of whiskey in the 400,000-gallon tank.

Further along the tourist drive, we stop at the Ginversity, a brewery which specialises in Gin and Whiskey distilling. We stop to take pictures only of the giant still outside and the pictures around the site. I particularly like the “Dram” sign, which is obviously a take-off, of a slang damnation.

The continuation of the tourist road takes us past the sign to the wind farm. It’s a reasonably long drive into the farm but once we are there, the sights are well worth the drive. Whilst there are wind turbines, there are also viewing platforms, along paths through myriads of wildflowers. Pictures are snapped in all directions. I even manage to get a close up shot of some blue flowers I tried to get as we whizzed past them yesterday.

This place takes us up to once of the viewing platforms, past various explanatory signs, describing the changes in weather here, causing the ability of the turbines to provide up to 80% of the electricity for Albany’s lights. There are 18 turbines across the crest of the hills and today, in the wind, they are all functioning with zeal.

Enough here, back to the tourist road, still heading away from the van park and the city centre. We continue to the end of the road. We are now at the furthers point of the bay you can see from the beach in front of the port. We have been here before, in our previous visit and again we go for a wander. There is a freighter, apparently heading out. Wanting to take a picture of the empty vessel, we are disappointed we cannot get to a position where we can see it. The wind is still howling, even harder here on the unexposed beach.

Silver Leader calls, and asks us where we are, they have finished at the hairdressers and they are now heading for the ANZAC memorial. We suggest where we are and we will get there eventually. He asks if we have seen or heard from Forbsy, then he cuts us off as Forbsy’s Cruiser is parked immediately in front of them.

We are yet to have lunch, so we are not in any hurry to get to the memorial. As well as lunch we have a few places we still want to investigate on the road back. Given we are hungry, we will be looking for a place to eat as we explore. Robyn remembers a caravan selling squid, fish and chips back at the port. If we don’t find any alternative, this is our back up. The GPS suggests there is a sailing club close, and the street design shows lots of streets, perhaps this will be suitable.

The driveway looks a little exclusive for our tastes, and we really only want something simple, so we do a lap of the car park and head back out. We keep to the waters edge on our way back, but do not find anything suitable for our needs. The further we go, the more it looks like the caravan offer, will be the end game. We get to the port and head to the caravan.

We order their squid, fish and chips and a couple of drinks. We sit at the tables by the water to wait. There is one seagull prowling the area. We notice it snaffles up a couple of chip bits left by the previous patrons. Now we see the lunacy of the seagull mentality. The seagull has now eaten a little and perhaps, because we are there, there might be more. The “Finding Nemo” writers got it right.

Our lunch comes and we tuck in. The fish in particular is lovely (I find out later it was shark), the squid not so, but this is a takeaway fast food outlet. Now back to the seagull mentality, this gull has us to itself. Not far away, but far enough not to see what might be happening, are around 50 more. They are squawking over something. If the gull remains quiet, he will be rewarded with whatever is left over. I throw him a small portion of chip, but rather than just eating it, the gull starts crowing and gesturing, like an alpha gull, attracting others. Now with the commotion, what does the gull do, not simply wait for the next chip, it looks to hunt away all potential competitors, competitors who would not have known the difference had the commotion not started.

The madness, amusing as it was, is over and its time to head off. Nothing more to do than head to the memorial, and here is where the day changes significantly. The memorial was not there when we were here in 2014, so this is our first visit to the site. As soon as you drive in, you are impressed with the size of it. It is many acres, on top of a hill looking over the bay where the first and second convoys of troops bound for the Dardanelles to create the legend of 25 April.

There is a monument to each ship, none of which appear to have armaments, and each of the Australian ones note the passengers, soldiers, commissioned officers and horses. The numbers of the New Zealanders are not noted. At the top of the hill is a gun emplacement and a viewing platform looking out over the forming up area. The plaque at the top shows where they all would have sat prior to leaving.

Halfway back down is a HMAS Perth Museum & Interpretive Centre. Its open and its contents are a plethora of information about those ships which have carried the name HMAS Perth. We take lots of shots of these memorabilia and engross in the information. These are only a small portion of what is here though.

We have done the outside, now its time to wander into the main facility. Robyn is looking for a toilet, and there is one just inside the door of the complex. While she is relieving herself, I pay for our entry, something we probably would have not done, had Silver Leader and Rosalie, not been there. Once Robyn comes back, we are given the drum on the museum and its interactive parts. There is a card of an ANZAC we can insert at various places and get their insights and service records, and a listening device we can use in different places to get an audio of events.

This place doesn’t just deal with Gallipoli, it deals with the whole of World War 1. The more you interact with the displays, the greater the awareness of what they went through so we could remain free. So many of them paid the ultimate price, never returning, and are buried in places like Fromelles, Villers Bretonneux etc. The audios are chilling insights. The pictures and the videos depictions of the lunacy of war.

We spend several hours here, except the light is fading. most to closing time, but still there is more to see. There are gun and torpedo displays outside as well as walks we could do, but we decide to head back. We have spinach pies to cook and dinner to be had, as well as readying ourselves for an early departure in the morning. When we return here, which we will, I suspect we might spend a full day in this place of remembrance. It certainly takes the wind out of any petty things we may have in our lives, when you realise your ability to have that bad day, was in part because of the sacrifice of these men like the ones that left here in 1914 in those two convoys.

Silver Leader has not found the information about his ancestor here, because evidently, he sailed from Sydney and may have come via Albany on his way to his destiny.

We need fuel for tomorrow, so instead of heading directly back to the van park, we head up to the highway, where I have noticed a station with the cheapest fuel. On the way I take a picture of a very small van and send it to my sister, who is thinking of something. There is a caravan convention in town and they are everywhere, but not in the van parks. They have congregated in their hundreds in the biggest parks in Albany, and many of the patrons are seen around town with their red lanyards on.

Fuelled up, we head back towards the van park, but just shy I turn left and head towards Emu Point, the area where Matt and Sarah like to stay when they are in town. There are signs warning of turtles crossing roads between October and December, as well as various other signs warning of fauna like bandicoots and kangaroos etc. We did Emu Point last time we were here, and I fished in a very small inlet between the point and an island.

Wanderlust satisfied, we head back to the park, and I start on the spinach pies. Soon I am up to my arm pits in cheeses and eggs, while the spinach is heading to the boil. Once everything is ready, I portion five pies into the oven and settle in for the wait. It takes time, longer than usual because the oven is a little slower than a “normal” oven, but it finally happens. Once the pies are done, I replace the tins with chicken pieces, which we will use as luncheon materials over the next few days.

Tomorrow will be a long day, we need to get an early start on rest.