Hobart, Tasmania

     We docked in Hobart on the morning of March 3, the first of two days in Tasmania.  Once known as Van Diemen’s Land, Tasmania is a large island off the southeast coast of Australia that is also an Australian province.  Hobart is its biggest city at about a quarter of a million and also its capital.  The city dates back to 1804.  We visited here the first time in 2018 and the blog entry for that visit includes many of the same places we visited again today (along with some we didn’t visit again) with background information we will try not to repeat too much here.  You can see that Hobart visit here: 

https://baderjournal.com/2018/06/29/hobart-tasmania-australia/

     We didn’t have anything we particularly wanted to see here this time so we decided to spend our time in port walking around the city, since this is a very pleasant walking city.  Accordingly, after breakfast we exited the ship and walked along the water around the edge of the port.  Hobart, which is closer to Antarctica than to Perth in Western Australia, is considered a “gateway” to Antarctica.  As we walked along the waterfront we encountered a set of bronze sculptures collectively called “Heading South” that commemorate Hobart’s Antarctic connection.  Antarctic explorer Louis Bernacchi, the first Australian to winter in Antarctica in 1898, is shown taking a self portrait with his dog Joe.  Nearby are sculptures of penguins and seals standing on rocks in the water.  These were all installed here between 1998 and 2002.

     We walked on for a while, visiting a few shops and passing replicas of the wooden huts used by Sir Douglas Mawson during his 1911 expedition to Antarctica (the originals are still in Antarctica).  Eventually we came to the Hobart Town Hall, the seat of the city’s government.  The building has been used for this purpose since 1866.  Some very bright flowers were planted in boxes in front of the building and on one wall was a modest memorial to Captain Cook that was installed in 1970 on the bicentenary of his first visit to Australia.

     Not far from the town hall we came to Franklin Square.  Established in the 1860’s to be a public meeting area in the center of town it has often been a venue for political demonstrations.  The centerpiece of the 1.6 acre park is a fountain topped by a statue of Sir John Franklin for whom the park is named, an Arctic explorer and public official of Van Diemen’s Land during the 1830’s and 40’s.  In the park was a clever sign warning about the current state of the internet.

     We headed toward the library but on the way we walked past St David’s Cathedral, seat of the Anglican diocese of Tasmania, and a sign indicating that Tasmania’s idea of a nutrition pyramid may be very different from ours.

     The library is in what looks pretty much like a nondescript office building.  The building houses the State Library of Tasmania, a reference and  research facility, and the Hobart Library, a public lending library.  Hobart’s first library opened in 1849 and only served subscribers but was opened to the public in 1860.  It closed in 1867 but a new public reference library opened in the town hall in 1870.  Andrew Carnegie paid for the library to move to new quarters in 1907 with the requirement that a free lending service be established, and it has been in its present building since 1962.  Inside the library was open and airy.  On the ground floor was a museum mostly displaying furniture and other artifacts from early settlers, but it also had an interesting exhibit about how semaphores were the only means of communication with other communities in Tasmania in the early days.  The librarian at the front desk was very welcoming and quite interested in the voyage that brought us here.

     Not far away we came to the rather distinctive City Hall,  Opened in 1915 in what was previously a market area, this is not a government building despite the name.  It is a venue for sport and entertainment events, having hosted over the years boxing matches, basketball tournaments, silent movies, a ball for Queen Elizabeth and the Miss Australia Grand Finals.  We were pretty confused when we spotted it, having already visited the town hall, which is actually the seat of Hobart’s government.

     It was a fairly long walk to get to Salamanca Place.  This venue consists of rows of buildings that were once warehouses for the port but have since the 1990’s been converted into shops, and restaurants.  There are several narrow pedestrian lanes between sets of buildings and large open  squares among the buildings with small apartment buildings and hotels as well as shopfronts, sculptures and fountains.  We had been here in 2018 and actually bought something at a yarn store that we managed to find again today.  One side of a square in which we sat down for a few minutes was a rock wall that we understand used to be part of a quarry.  One sculpture, called “Happy Birthday Mr President” resembles a famous photo of Marilyn Monroe standing in high heels above an air exhaust with her skirts billowing around her.  Our picture, unfortunately, only reaches the top of her head and not the bunny ears sprouting out of it.  Several buildings on one side of the complex constitute the Salamanca Arts Centre.

     We were getting tired and hungry so we headed back along the waterfront toward the ship.  We had fish & chips for a late lunch at a place called Mares Seafood where we had eaten in 2018, which is in a building quite close to the dock.  It was (as always in Australia) very good and afterwards we stopped for some gelato at a window on the side of the building.  So ended day one in Tasmania.

Port Arthur, Tasmania

     On the morning of March 4 we were anchored in Carnarvon Bay by Port Arthur, just 60 miles from Hobart.  In fact they are so close that you can usually take a ship excursion here from Hobart, but since the ship was coming here the next day we didn’t.  When we visited Tasmania in 2018 we were scheduled to stop at Port Arthur after Hobart but were forced to skip it because of a cyclone (which we were caught in anyway, quite an adventure in itself).   The thing to see here is the old penitentiary for convicts transported from Britain.

     It was a beautiful day as we tendered to the dock on shore a little way up the shore from the prison.  We walked up to the visitors’ center and took in the informative but disturbing displays there, some of which appeared to be of questionable accuracy, then walked down the hill to the prison area.  Port Arthur began in 1830 as a timber settlement but by 1833 it had become a penal colony focused on repeat offenders among the convicts transported from Britain.  While these were described as hardened criminals, it should be remembered that many offenses that would be considered minor today were treated much more harshly at that time, with relatively small thefts often being punished as capital crimes.  Port Arthur involved harsh punishments but also incorporated what was considered more enlightened concern with rehabilitation, although some of the psychological techniques for that proved quite harmful to prisoners’ mental health. 

     The prison was closed in 1877 and over the next few decades the buildings deteriorated, a process greatly exacerbated by two large fires during the 1890’s.  While it had been something of a tourist destination for some time, in 1979 an effort to restore the site began (and seemed still to be active when we were there).  In 2010 Port Arthur was one of 11 Australian prison sites designated collectively as a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Today it has more than a quarter of a million visitors per year.

     We began our visit in the main penitentiary building along the waterfront.  Inside we saw the remains of some of the small cells on the first floor where difficult prisoners were kept in darkness and silence, often with hoods over their heads to eliminate all social and environmental contact.  The theory apparently was that this kind of extreme isolation would encourage them to reflect on their misdeeds, but it actually caused deterioration of mental health.

     Overlooking the entire prison was the Guard Tower on top of a large retaining wall.  It is round and fairly tall with a crenelated top, looking rather medieval. There are two smaller side towers in a similar style, one on each side.  This was built in the mid-1830’s by inmates of an associated prison for boys not far from the penitentiary. 

     In the first picture of the guard tower above you can just see on the left part of the picture what we think is the Commandant’s House peeking over a wall.  It was expanded in the 1840’s and briefly became the Carnarvon Hotel after the penitentiary closed.  Rick climbed up and walked through the house, which was small but nice, its best feature being the view over the bay from the front porch.  The Commandant lived well away from the convicts, strategically located with the guard tower between him and them.

     We walked further up the hill toward the hospital ruins.  It was built in the early 1840’s and had a capacity of 70 patients, with soldiers and officers in a separate ward from the prisoners.  The building was badly damaged in the fires of the 1890’s which left it pretty much in the condition it is seen in now.  On the way back down the hill we saw the Law Courts building.  New prisoners were lectured here on the prison’s rules and hearings on rule violations for all prisoners were held here as well.

     Walking back down the hill gave us a different perspective on the buildings than we had on the way up.  We had had enough of this rather depressing place, so we headed back to the tender dock, then to the ship.  .That evening we sailed away from Tasmania.

     We spent the 1st of March in Melbourne, the capital and largest city in the state of Victoria.  With a population of almost 4.5 million it contains almost a fifth of the entire population of Australia.  There is more background in the post of our first visit, in 2018,  most of which will not be repeated here.  But you can take a look:   https://baderjournal.com/2016/02/26/melbourne-australia/.

     One day is certainly not enough to fully explore a city of this size and we had seen some of the things at the top of our list last time.  We decided this time we would go into the city and follow (loosely) a walking tour Melbourne has published to see Aboriginal art.  The maps were available near the city hall so that is where we headed after breakfast.  We had thought about walking into town (maybe 2 miles) but as you can see in the picture the skies were dark and cloudy and rain was forecast.  Melbourne’s excellent tram system had a stop across the street from the dock, so we bought return tickets and boarded the tram.  An older local fellow bent our ears for the whole trip about the places he thought we should visit but, although he was just being nice, we had already planned our day.  We left the tram very close to the town hall, visited the information office for our map and sat down on a bench.  While Mary studied the map I took a few pictures, of some very red flowers, of a small sculpture of a dog on the sidewalk, of the Town Hall and of the interesting 1932 Art Deco Manchester Unity Building.

     We walked to Spring St, which has been the center of government here since the mid 19th century, and a number of grand old Victorian era buildings are still in use there.  Parliament House was the centerpiece and is the reason this is considered the center of government.  A long building in classical style fronted by a row of pillars, it was originally built in the mid-1850’s with additions over the next few decades.  But it has never been completed, most conspicuously the dome in the original plan is still missing.  It was the home of the Australian Parliament while Melbourne was the national capital in the early 20th century but now it houses the parliament of Victoria.

     The front steps of Parliament House are often the venue for political demonstrations.  We visited there on the day after the commencement of the US war against Iran and there was a small group of demonstrators on the steps.  There were no signs and no slogans and no speeches (at least while we were there) so we weren’t entirely sure what their position was.  They had an Israeli flag and an Australian flag along with four Iranian flags, so that seemed like a rather mixed message.  But we have learned since that the Iranian flags they were flying, with a golden horse in the middle, were abandoned by Iran at the time of their Islamic revolution and the golden horse was replaced by a red and white design.  Apparently the old flag is used today by people seeking an end to the Islamic state and a return to the old government.  So that seems to make the demonstrators’ message clearer as support for the attack on Iran the day before.  Still not sure, but that is what seems likely.

     Across the street were some more notable Victorian buildings.  The Princess Theater dates to 1857 and was rebuilt in 1886.  It is the oldest entertainment venue on the continent of Australia.  The Windsor Hotel (once known as the Grand Hotel) first opened in 1884 and was greatly expanded in 1888.  It is the last of Australia’s 19th century grand hotels.

     This area had a good bit of green space, including several parks decorated with statues and other public art.  Next to the Parliament House was a sizeable park with some statues, but the only pictures we have are of some of their beautiful flowers.  In front of Parliament House was a mosaic with an Aboriginal motif copied from an 1890 painting.  This commemorates the area’s history as a traditional gathering and ceremonial place of the Kulin aboriginal people who lived here. 

     To the right of Parliament House was a small park called Gordon Reserve.  It contains a statue of Charles George Gordon, a much admired English general who died defending Khartoum in Sudan in 1885.  The statue was erected in 1887 and is a copy of a statue that once stood in Trafalgar Square in London and now sits on the Victoria Embankment in front of the British Ministry of Defense.  Also in Gordon Reserve is an elaborately sculpted fountain in a Victorian style.  Called the Stanford Fountain, it was installed in 1871 shortly after its creator, William Stanford, was released from prison where he had been since he was about 15.  The fountain was made of bluestone from the prison’s quarry.  While difficult to see in our photo, the central pillar is adorned by the figure of a boy.  Stanford died in 1880, reportedly from inhaling too much stone dust.

     Earlier in this area we happened past what we think was the Old Treasury Building, opened in 1862 and now a museum.  What was notable was the nicely dressed wedding parties standing outside, apparently waiting for their turn for a ceremony since the Marriage Registry for Victoria is in this building.  Unfortunately we were looking for the Parliament Building at that time and neglected to take a picture, but it was still worth noting.

     We left the Spring Street area to walk to what is apparently the motherlode of Aboriginal Art at the Ian Potter Centre of the National Gallery of Victoria (called NGV).  This was a pretty lengthy walk along city streets, passing several blocks of what appeared to be old commercial buildings (except for one that said it was a mosque) and along a street overlooking the railroad tracks.  The Gallery building had a very distinctive modern design on its front facade.  The NGV was founded in 1861 and has more than 75,000 works in its collection in several locations.  The Potter Centre opened in 2002 to house the NGV’s Australian art collection, numbering some 20,000 works.  This is a beautiful museum where we spent most of our time with the Aboriginal art, although there were a number of rooms containing other Australian art.

    Our next objective was the Melbourne City Library.  On the walk there we passed the statue of Matthew Flinders, the first to circumnavigate Australia in 1802.  It was erected in 1923 outside St Paul’s Cathedral on Swanston Street.  It took a while to find the City Library, located on a side street with only a very small sign.   It is a little small for a city this size, but Melbourne has a number of other library locations.  Note that this is the city’s central public lending and research library, not the fabulous State Library that we visited on our first visit.

     One more thing on the must do list before returning to the ship was to find a gelato shop.  It turned out there was a very good one on a pedestrian lane running right next to the library.  The lane was called Degraves Street and the shop was called Piccolina.  There were several cafes nearby and tables with umbrellas out in the street.  The tables were full, but as we came out of the gelato shop a nice fellow who had finished his meal stood up and offered us his table, which we gratefully accepted.  Melbourne has a number of these relatively short and narrow pedestrian lanes which are considered a feature of the city.

     Buoyed by our delicious gelato treat we walked back to the tram stop near the town hall and rode back to the dock, along with one of our waiters who had shore leave to visit the city.  To our surprise, given the forecast, we did not encounter any actual rain during our visit although the skies were mostly cloudy and sometimes looked threatening.  We sailed away in late afternoon, as usual.

     We anchored off Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island early on February 27.  It’s just a handful of miles from Adelaide so no problem getting here early in the morning.  Last time we were here, in 2018, we signed up for a 9 hour excursion that would take us across the island to visit some of the most prominent landmarks.  But we ran into a cyclone (quite an adventure) that delayed our arrival by four hours requiring all the long excursions to be cancelled.  You can see that visit (including the cyclone experience) here: https://baderjournal.com/2018/07/02/penneshaw-kangaroo-island-australia/.  So we signed up for the same excursion for this visit and were able to complete the whole thing.

     So we tendered into Penneshaw in the morning to meet our excursion bus and off we went.  Even though our guide Robert drove pretty fast on the less than perfect roads, the long morning drive across the island through mostly forests and fields made us wonder if we had made a bad choice.  One interesting thing we saw in the southwestern part of the island was fields of low green growth with taller dead white trees.  This was the result of the massive forest fires here in 2020 which not only destroyed much woodland but also killed about 80 percent of the Koalas who lived there.  Koalas are slow, low energy animals who live mostly in eucalyptus trees, whose leaves are most of their diet.  Their natural response to danger is to climb higher into the trees but that didn’t protect them from the wildfires.  A massive effort to rescue the survivors was undertaken and today the population has rebounded to between 15 and 20 thousand, maybe 40% of what it was before the fires.

        Eventually we reached Flinders Chase National Park, named for Matthew Flinders who visited here in 1802 and named it Kangaroo Island.  It was established as a nature reserve in 1919 and made a national park in 1972.  Our first visit was to Admiral’s Arch, a natural bridge overlooking the rocky ocean shore.  Getting to it requires a very long walk along a boardwalk that descends and then goes around Cape du Couedic to reach a wooden stairway up to the arch viewing platform.  Very nice seaside views from the boardwalk.  Less than a mile off the coast were the two Casuarina Islets.

     The arch is said to have been formed by erosion from ocean waves but when we were there the ocean looked too far down for that.  Maybe it was different in the past or during other seasons.  The walls and top of the arch look like a cave formation, very uneven with what look like small stalactites.  It was quite windy the day we were there, especially on the exposed viewing platform, which is why Rick isn’t wearing his hat in the picture below.  We understand that this area is frequented by large numbers of Long Nosed Fur Seals, but on the day we visited we only saw two of them.  Maybe it was the wind.

     On higher ground back from the ocean stood the 82 foot tall Cape du Couedic Lighthouse.  Opened in 1909, it was automated in 1957 and since 1991 the three former lighthouse keeper’s houses have been available for park visitors to rent.  We saw it fairly closely from the parking lot and in the distance as we drove away.

     Remarkable Rocks is the name given to a group of large granite boulders sitting near a cliff some 200 feet above the ocean.  They have been sculpted naturally by wind, rain and sea spray over some 500 million years into formations that look a little like works by Henry Moore.  Remarkable Rocks sounds like a remarkably English name to us, but it is quite appropriate.  We parked some distance away and you had to walk on a flat boardwalk until we reached the rocks, which were on top of a low hill of granite.  The orange blotches on the rocks are lichen.  From inside the formation on the hill the rocks made for a stunning display.

     It was time for lunch so we drove to Emu Ridge Eucalyptus Distillery, the only remaining example of what once was a thriving industry on Kangaroo Island, to eat our box lunches.  The lunches were distributed in what appeared to be a lunchroom and they were quite good for box lunches.Many of us took the meal outside and sat at picnic tables set up on the grounds, some with welcome shade.  It turned out that koalas hung out in the eucalyptus trees near our picnic tables.  As you would expect, once spotted they drew a crowd & we were among them.

     After lunch we boarded the bus once again to drive to Seal Bay, which has been a protected reserve for Australian sea lions since 1954.  These sea lions are an endangered species and Seal Bay’s colony of about 800 is the third largest in the world, accounting for about 5% of the total population.  When we visited there were only a few dozen at the beach beneath us (possibly more on other parts of the beach).  To visit the sea lions required another long walk down a boardwalk from the visitor’s center.  Visitors can only step onto the beach in the company of a park ranger, who gives a lot of information and also makes sure no one approaches the sea lions.  Rick took the ranger tour on the beach while Mary stayed on a viewing platform at the top of the hill.  One thing she saw that those of us on the beach did not was the skeleton of a juvenile humpback whale that washed up in this area during a storm in 1984.

     On the beach we were able to walk around a bit to take pictures, but never to walk near the sea lions.  The park ranger was quite good at leading the tour and explaining everything, but was careful to corral any wandering visitors.  We think these were all females along with their pups, and they really weren’t doing much for the most part.  But still quite fun to see.

     One of the mother seals apparently climbed up one of the wooden stairways, where she stretched out on a step for a nap.  But her pup followed her up there later and looked to be interested in lunch.  But the mom didn’t respond so the pup went back down to the beach.  This was the most activity we saw here.

     It was time to head back to the tender dock in Penneshaw so we all piled back into the bus.  But we made two more stops before the end.  First we stopped back at the Emu Ridge facility at the request of some of the passengers.  It turned out they have a lot more than just a distillery.  There was a cafe and a store where we bought some honey produced by the last pure Ligurian bees in the world, who are only found on Kangaroo Island.  An animal rescue operation there had several kangaroos in residence.  We also spotted another koala while we were there.  The second stop was at an overlook of a large bay that we think our guide Robert told us was called Baudin Beach.  Just before we got there Robert gave us a stern lecture that this area was very dangerous, with an unfenced cliff that would be easy to fall over if walking through the rough sand and stones.  So he admonished us not to wander beyond the road.  Nevertheless, one woman (who you can see in the photo) started walking toward the cliff as soon as she exited the bus.  Robert was really furious and yelled at her to come right back, which she reluctantly did. 

     From there it was back to Penneshaw to board the tender back to the ship.  It had been an excellent day, starting out seeming like a disappointment but ending up as one of the highlights of the voyage.  As the tender pulled away we saw cormorants on the rocks (they were there on our last visit too) and not to be overlooked, a sea gull.

     It took two sea days to reach the harbor of Adelaide on February 26.   The port is a long way from the city so the best way to get there is on a train, which is what we did on our first visit here in 2018.  We spent the day on that visit with our friends Bill & Robert exploring the very interesting downtown area of Adelaide, which is the capital of South Australia and a big city of about 1.4 million. You can see that visit here:  https://baderjournal.com/2018/07/04/adelaide-australia/.

     On this visit we wanted to see some of the surrounding countryside so we joined an excursion going into the hill country around Mt Lofty.  Our bus drove (and drove some more) through the suburbs into Adelaide, through downtown Adelaide, then up into the hills beyond on the other side from the port.  So we saw quite a lot, but from the windows of the bus. 

     We drove up the 2300 foot Mt Lofty, named by Matthew Flinders in 1802 when he led the first circumnavigation of Australia.  In 1885 a tower more than 50 feet tall was erected at the summit to serve as a surveying marker and later as a navigation aid.  In 1902 it was named the Flinders Column in honor of Matthew Flinders.  Today it is part of a lookout area with panoramic views of Adelaide that includes a gift shop and a cafe.  Looking in the opposite direction from Adelaide you can see the more than 100 foot tall Mt Lofty Fire Tower, which has been used since it was built in 1980 to keep watch for forest fires.

     We drove on to our main destination, a small town (population less than 2500) in the mountains called Hahndorf.  It was founded in about 1839 by a group of 188 immigrants from a town in Prussia (today it is in Poland) who had sailed from Hamburg on a ship called the Zebra.  They were a Lutheran congregation fleeing religious persecution.  The voyage took about four months, arriving in South Australia at the end of 1838.  They settled together on land they purchased in the Adelaide Hills where they founded a German speaking farming community.  They named their settlement Hahndorf after the captain of the Zebra, Dirk Meinerts Hahn, who had taken an interest in the group and was instrumental in helping them find and purchase the land.  While some other Germans emigrated to Australia during this period, Hahndorf is the oldest continuing German town in Australia.  We understand that descendants of many of the original immigrants still live here.

     Hahndorf struck us as a rather arty town largely catering to tourists.  It was two or three blocks long so we walked up one side and back on the other, passing a number of gift shops, artist galleries and restaurants.  There was a museum telling about the town’s history, but it was very small and most of the building seemed to be devoted to the gift shop.  There were, however, a couple of nice churches.  Pleasant enough, but not the best choice for the one day available in Adelaide.  We met up with our friend Karen, who was in town on a different excursion, and we ate in a nice German restaurant called The Haus Hahndorf.  Mary and Karen had Reuben sandwiches on a pretzel bun and Rick had a very good sausage platter with sauerkraut and a big bready pretzel.  Among other things we saw while walking around town was a statue of Captain Hahn and a very Bavarian looking beer advertisement in front of the restaurant.

      After lunch we found a gelato place for dessert, then returned to the bus for the drive back to the ship.  It was early autumn and the streets of this town in the mountains were quite colorful and made for a pleasant walk, as you can see Mary and Karen enjoying that in the picture below.

     We spent February 23 in Albany, the oldest town in Western Australia.  Founded in 1826, Albany now has a population around 35,000.  We had an interesting visit here in 2018, https://baderjournal.com/2018/07/06/albany-australia/, most of which will not be repeated in this episode.  This time we took the shuttle bus into the center of town and walked around from there.

     The most noticeable building as we left the bus on York Street, the town’s main street, was the old town hall with its tall clocktower.  The building opened in 1888 and the clock, imported from England, was added in 1891.  Today the building houses a theater and an art gallery and markets often appear in the open space next door, as one did the day we were there.

     Just up the street from the town hall was the Albany Public Library.  Although it traces its history to the Albany Mechanics Institute formed in 1852, today it occupies a modern building that opened in 2003 (and was being renovated when we visited in 2018).  The library has a nice program lending ipads to seniors who may not otherwise be able to read ebooks.  And its high tech book drop requires you to scan the book you are returning to open the slot, presumably to discourage the deposit of non-library objects.  After walking through the library we left by a back door into an open field and at the top of the stairs was a large boulder with a metal snake sculpture climbing around it.  This town has many sculptures decorating its open spaces.

     Mokare was a Noongal Aboriginal man who was instrumental in promoting peaceful coexistence between the Aboriginal and European communities during the early years of settlement (and even before then).  Mokare was living with the government resident, Alexander Collie, when he died in 1831.  Four years later Collie, at his request, was buried next to Mokare on a spot where the town hall now sits.  The graves were exhumed and Collie was reburied in Albany’s cemetery, but there is no information about what happened to Mokare’s remains.

     Today there is a statue of Mokare in Alison Hartman Gardens next to the library.  It was first erected here in 1978.  Nearby is a plaque mounted on a boulder explaining that this was a joint reconciliation project “funded by the Aboriginal Affairs Department and the Town of Albany.”  The statue stands on a round brick platform with low walls embedded with tiles created by regional school children.

     In the platform floor are several colorful round medallions representing the Aboriginal seasons created by local Aboriginal artists.  Each plaque includes Aboriginal symbols representing the weather during that season, with the English months and the indigenous name for that season written along opposite edges.  Below are five of them:  Meertilluc (Feb – March) Reddish color represents heat and the symbols represent the sun;  Pourner (Apr – May)  Circular symbols represent water holes and depictions of turtles that are hunted during this season;  Mawkur (June – July)  Lines and blue dots represent rivers full with heavy rain and u-shaped figures represent people sitting around fires to keep warm;  Meerningal (Aug –Sept) Spring in the southern hemisphere, so the circles represent blossoming flowers and berries and the connecting lines represent roots;  Maungernan (Oct – Nov)  Symbols depict banksia flowers that appear during this period and the orange also represents warming temperatures.  Beruc (Dec – Jan) was there as well but we don’t have a picture of it.

     We walked down York Street, which gets steeper as it descends toward the bay.  We stopped to see St John’s Anglican Church, the oldest consecrated church in Western Australia, which opened in 1848.  It was built of local stone by the people of the town and could have held the entire population of 170 when it first opened.  The church and rectory are in a park-like setting with nice gardens.  While the outer doors were open when we visited the inner doors were locked so we could not go inside.  On the grounds is the Albany War Memorial, unveiled in 1921 to honor locals who served in World War I.  Plaques with the names of soldiers from World War II and Korea were added later.

     We continued down York Street and turned left on Stirling Terrace, then walked on to the old post office.  Originally built in 1869, the building was expanded in 1895 when the clock tower, then about 64 feet tall, was added (it was extended another 20 feet in 1901).  The clock tower contains a spiral staircase supported by the outer wall.  The building also served as a courthouse in its early years and in the 1870’s was the site of the town’s first telegraph office.  It served as the city’s post office until 1964 and since 2002 it has been part of the University of Western Australia.  It is an attractive building.

     On the way back toward York Street we walked up the very steep Spencer Street to see the Albany Museum of Surfing, which sounded pretty interesting.  But looking through the large window when we got there it looked like just a thrift shop with a few surfing items in the window.  It may be that more surfing artifacts are on display further into the shop but we will never know because we decided not to go inside.

     We continued our walk down Stirling Terrace past York Street and after a while came to the Museum of the Great Southern off to our left.  The museum was small (and free) but pretty comprehensive.  It covered Aboriginal history, western colonization, convict history, early whaling, local natural history and Albany’s experience as the departure port for the ANZAC troops in World War I.  There was also a good exhibition about Chinese immigration to Australia over several decades and an informative exhibit about the effects of the White Australia Policy (under which nonwhites were barred from emigrating here).  The museum was full of interesting photos and explanatory placards but seemed a little light on artifacts, which is why we took no inside pictures.  The museum is on the site of the first European settlement here and part of the museum (we think the left side in the picture below) is the Residency Building constructed in 1850 to house the government representative in town.  We didn’t go inside the Eclipse Building but we did walk up as far as its front porch where we saw some interesting metal bird sculptures.

     Tired and hungry we walked back up York Street to have lunch at the pub in the Albany Hotel where we ate on our first visit.  Across the street from the town hall, it is billed as the oldest licensed pub in Western Australia (apparently another pub in the state is older but wasn’t licensed when it opened  . . . what good is a pub without a liquor license?).  The pub dates back to 1836 but the hotel wasn’t built until 1852.  We had delicious fish and chips here as we did the first time, although the waiter (who must be new, we guess) didn’t know they served fish and chips.  You can eat on the front porch, but that was too hot for us.

     After lunch we looked for awhile for a gelato place but all in vain.  So we walked a few blocks to the last thing we wanted to visit, Dog Rock.  It was a longer walk than we remembered from our last visit but maybe that was just due to the hot weather.  Dog Rock is a natural granite outcrop that has been known to the Noongar Aboriginal people as Yacka (“wild dog tamed”) for a long time and it is thought to have been an ancient territory marker.  The black and white dog collar was first painted around the base in 1937 when the Automobile Club complained that it was a traffic danger because it extended into the road.

     If you have followed our travels you may notice something missing in this picture:  Rick’s hat, which he always wears ashore to avoid sun damage.  Well, Rick suddenly noticed that too and realized the hat had been left in the pub!  So we walked all the way back there, a little quicker than we would have otherwise for fear it might otherwise be gone.  It turned out that they had found the hat after we left and another group from the Zaandam sitting at a table on the front porch recognized it and offered to take it back to the ship.  They were still there when we arrived back and were happy to turn it over to us.  All’s well that ends well, right?  The shuttle stop was right across the street, so we boarded the bus and returned to the ship.