Eden is also known as one of the world’s best destinations for whale watching, though not at this time of the year. Guide Dan said that when the whales migrate north, it is like Dad driving, they go straight there and don’t stop. But August-September when they are done having babies and heading home for the summer Mom is driving and they stop off at all the bays and inland areas.
Dan also made me giggle when he said there would be places to go to the bathroom, but at most stops there would only be a “bush dunny”, essentially a hole in the ground.
At any rate, I booked a five-hour small group tour. We were in a little van of six other cruisers who were delightful. It definitely ended up being more of a nature tour. Though not usually of my interest, it was nice having some walks outside and learning about native plants and animals.
While we were driving to our first stop Dan talked about the fires that engulfed most of this part of Australia in 2019 and 2020. It was very interesting to learn how the trees recover. In this area of the country they basically use their energy to shoot off new branches and grow them, so we could see the basically dead huge burned tree branches with little bushy new growth off the main trunk. In other regions, trees have seeds that will only crack open during extreme heat and then will only germinate on the forest floor if it is clear and they are getting a lot of sunlight… something that would only happen if a fire occurred and burned down the trees and forest floor. Nature finds a way!
Our first stop was the Pinnacles Loop walking track. We saw giant termite mounds, cliff faces formed over millions of years, banksia plants (which Dan’s kids call “Blah Blah Blahs” because when their cone seed pods open they look like lips talking), and even a venomous snake. Dan said the snake wouldn’t bother us and it wasn’t an aggressive type, and we would know by seeing this particular red backed one the others wouldn’t be in the area. I didn’t get a good pic, the snake was at the trail’s edge, but as soon as we came was trying to get away from us.
Oh, another funny thing Dan said… Europeans couldn’t have helped kangaroos more than building golf courses everywhere… They love the green grass shaded areas more than the golfers. Ha. We did see some wild kangaroos here and there, always in shady areas relaxing.
From there, we headed to a beach to have a lovely picnic lunch. They had a local shop make us a quiche, salad, and chocolate brownie bars.
Then on to Boyd’s tower... think Trump of the 1800s… In the 1840s a Scottish guy named Benjamin Boyd wanted his tower to be an impressive landmark by day and a lighthouse at night to draw travelers into the bay to the city he created… Boydstown. However, he never got the governmental approval for a lighthouse and though he built the infrastructure for his town, no one wanted to live there and it was a failure. No one knows what happened to him. He supposedly owed a lot of people money and disappeared after leaving Australia in the 1870s. His tower had to have his name on all sides of the top.
Finally we visited the Davidson Whaling Station. For three generations until the 1920s the Davidson family practiced traditional whaling and is the only site in Australia where marine mammals have assisted humans in a commercial enterprise of their own free will. The link extends back to the indigenous harvesting of whales where Orcas assisted Aboriginal people by driving the whales onto the beach. Then, the Orcas took what they wanted (tongues and lips,) and the humans took the rest of the whales when the Orcas were finished.
The people on our tour were STRESSING OUT because our all aboard time was 4pm, but we made it with five minutes to spare! I would say this was the least interesting port to me, but I still learned and saw a lot.
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