We crammed in the last minute research, once we decided Albany was our stopover port of choice. Suddenly we were spoilt for options and 24 hours was nowhere near enough time to do anything meaningful, or so we thought. Some of the top sights were drivable, but too far to taxi. There we no mini-buses available for hire either, so I booked and paid for 3 rental cars online (or so I thought) for our combined 14 crew from the 2 yachts. Now I don’t want to name and shame the rental car company, so let’s just call them “mAvis”.

After tying up in the Albany Marina, Ken, Kester and I wandered to the nearest coffee shop, grabbed a coffee and a pie and then called a taxi, for the 15 minute drive to the airport to pick up our 3 rental cars. The first sign of trouble was walking to the airport to find the mAvis rental car counter empty, 5 minutes before we were due to collect the 3 cars. I rang the after hours number on the desk, to find out how we were to collect the cars. The immediate, unfriendly response was, “We don’t have 3 cars for you, because we assumed they were duplicate bookings. Why didn’t you ring us and tell us you wanted 3 cars?” the lady we shall call Doris (to protect her identity) responded. “I booked 3 cars, because I wanted 3 cars I replied, how soon can we have them please?” I asked.

“I am not sure, I will call you back” replied Doris.

Now we find ourselves standing in an empty airport terminal wondering what’s going to happen next. 10 minutes later, a flustered looking Doris walks into the terminal at pace and goes straight back to “why didn’t you call us if you wanted 3 cars?”

Despite booking 3 different cars, on 3 separate bookings, receiving 3 confirmation emails and having my credit card charged 3 times - I was now guilty of not realising this all meant nothing and I was supposed to have actually called Doris (who I had no phone number for) to tell her my bookings were genuine.

“If you were concerned, these were duplicates why didn’t you call me to check?” I asked. “We don’t have time to call you, we wouldn’t get any work done” replied Doris, with the colour in her cheeks darkening. “I am your work and I booked 3 cars, so can we have them please?” I responded getting mildly annoyed.

Doris from mAvis goes in for the kill - “well you can’t book 3 cars, because you can’t drive 3 cars”. I explain, I realise that and thats why Ken and Kester are here with their drivers license’s, so I can add them as approved drivers to the other 2 cars. Not to be defeated and determined to ruin our day, Doris from mAvis says - “but you can’t pay for 3 cars with 1 credit card, they have to be on 3 separate credit cards or the system won’t let you.” I open my Westpac banking app and say “look at this, mAvis have already charged the same account 3 times for the 3 different cars.”.

Her face darkening further and brow now developing heavy creases, Doris responds with, “that doesn’t matter, you still have to present a different card for each car at the counter.” Defeated, I turn to Kester and Ken and ask if they mind putting their cars on their personal credit cards, promising I will sort out the details later. More than happy, Kester hands over his card first, along with his license. Doris glares at them suspiciously, but accepts they are valid. Next, Ken steps forwards and hands over his credit card and license and tiny little smile threatens to creep across Doris’s face, as she says with glee “the name on your credit card is different to your license and they HAVE to match”.

Ken protests in vain and now we are stuck! It’s a 40-minute round trip to go to back the marina and it’s all burning up valuable sightseeing time. We had the cars booked for 12pm and it’s now 12:30pm and I am getting really pissed off at Doris’s attitude. I tell Doris that “this whole experience is ridiculous and really bad service and I want to speak to the manager.”

“I am the manger” Doris taunts back.,

“I would like the phone number for your regional manager please” I reply.

“You can’t have it, because we are a franchise. We don’t have a regional manager” Doris responds.

“Head Office then” I ask

“No” Doris bats back. I think she’s had this situation 1,000 times before. She is a master!

“This is just not good enough, I booked 3 different cars, I followed your website process when it asked if I want to make extra bookings, I received the confirmation emails, you charged my card 3 times, you need to sort this out.” I blasted back at Doris.

“The website always has problems with duplicates… nothing we can do.” replies Doris, but (sensing that I would eventually complain to someone in authority) “but…just this time… I will let you charge 2 of the cars to the same credit card.”

“Great thank you” I replied, quietly seething that the “system” would suddenly do what we had asked for from the start. I just couldn’t believe that a global rental car company won’t accept a booking for multiple cars on a single credit card. What do other companies do when they need bulk bookings for an employee group?

“And remember it’s 30 cents for every kilometre once you go over 100 and make sure the cars are back by 12pm tomorrow.” Doris added, after she had already wasted the first 40 minutes of our 24 hours. We were past any more debate and just wanted to get out of their before she imposed any more ‘customer hating’ rules.

And off we went, driving sensibly into town. We called up Marko and said “we’ll meet you guys at the Earl of Spencer Inn for lunch, we are on our way.” At 1pm we met the rest of the crew in the bar, in front of the open fire and grabbed a table for lunch. A menu packed with good English pub food, put Doris and mAvis to the back of our minds and our Albany adventure could finally begin. Salt Lines were due into the marina in the next hour and Matt said their crew were keen to have showers and take it easy on arrival.

We figured we had about 4 hours of daylight left, so first stop was the ANZAC Museum on top of the hill. With the New Zealand and Australian troop ships assembling in Albany, before departing en-mass for World War I, this place has some rich history that I had not appreciated. Albany is in a prime spot with large and sheltered primary and secondary harbours and the west coast just around the corner. We spent 90 minutes at the Museum (and could have spent 4 hours). It is an sobering and solum representation of the hardship and grief suffered by the 41,265 soldiers, that departed from Albany on the 1st and 2nd convoys to head off to a war, started between 2 European nations on the opposite side of the planet.

*The convey ships packed the harbour in 1914*

When you read the stories of individual soldiers, their battalions and the slaughter that occurred on a massive scale, as a result of planned attacks that were often poorly planned and sent men to their deaths, in the hundreds some days and thousands on other days.

Tales of slaughter (click images to read)

For our nations with small populations, the casualties were big numbers. From being shot, imprisoned, dying of disease or a multitude of other ways to die, this war was horrendous. If you survived that, you could still die from the Spanish Flu pandemic sweeping the planet in 1919. We owe a lot to the sacrifices these people made. It’s a pity we still can’t put an end such senseless and expensive wars. They are always started by men, and driven by power and politics. More women in global leadership roles may change that in future. War is so often senseless and wasteful and the prize is almost never wroth the human cost.

The museum was a silent and sombre experience for our crew as we digest the photos, videos and individual stories.

We departed the AMZAC Museum for the 25 minute drive to the Whaling Station Museum. We figured we would arrive at 3:55pm and squeeze in an hours viewing, before it closed. We high tailed it out of town, in our 3 rental cars, winding our way through the gorgeous green county side, arriving at the seaside museum right on 3:55pm. As we approached the counter I eyed up the $35 entry fee and I sensed the lady was “a friendly with warm blood in her veins” (unlike Doris) so I decided to have some fun. “It’s only 1 hour until you close, any chance we can get in for half price?” I asked. “No” she replied.

“Okay, I have got 4 seniors with me (I said disrespectfully in front of the older people in our group), any chance of a seniors discount?” I asked.

“Only if they have their seniors cards with them” she retorted with a smile - This lady was sharp!

“They all have dementia, so they’ve forgotten their cards” I replied with a grin.

Trying not to laugh, she said “hurry up and pay or I will charge you double.” I conceded and 7 x $35 it was to be.

The historic whaling station had closed down in 1978. It had been turned into a great visitor experience and really educational. The tour included a 3D movie, the old whaling station buildings and a whaling boat built in 1948. Some of the whaling images were fairly graphic, but its great to think this industry has now disappeared, across most of the planet.

*The engine room in the bowels of the whaler. A tough job for an engineer in a rolling sea.*

We learned that the worlds largest animal, the blue whale can weigh 100 tons and exceed 100 feet in length. Incredible! We crammed the Whaling Museum into they 65 minutes available and got another big smile from our new friend on reception, as we departed.

With an hour of sunlight left, next stop was The Gap, Natural Bridge and theCave Point Lighthouse. These are incredible natural attractions and the crew enjoyed the dramatic scenery, with views of the Southern Ocean from Bald Head to West Cape Howe.

The viewing platform at The Gap is 40m above the ocean and with spray coating us from the waves crashing against the rocks below, you could feel the power of the ocean.

The Parks and Wildlife infrastructure in this area is first class and built to last. The colours and textures of this land are just incredible!

*Natural Bridge - another natural wonder carved from millions of years of erosion*

Next we wandered down the path to Natural Bridge and read the story of a young guy who fell off the ledge into the ocean in 1978, as dark fell. He was rescued 2 hours later when a fishing boat that had headed to the area, miraculously found him still swimming. A fisherman tied a rope to his waist and dived into the cold waters to rescue the young man. This coastline is unforgiving and you would not want to be anywhere near it, in your yacht in a storm.

With light fading, we took a side road as we departed the area, to walk down the 250m track to the Cave Point Lighthouse. There was nothing amazing about the lighthouse, but the vista it commanded was breathtaking. I’m sure its been a welcome site for thousands of fisherman and whalers heading home from the Southern Ocean with their catch over the decades. We hightailed it back to the cars and our final attempt for the day was a 5km detour to a place labeled ‘The Blowholes”. It was a step too far and we were only 300m down the path (that was much longer than we expected) when we saw the rain squall racing towards us across the ocean. We decided quickly that the blow holes were not worth getting drenched for and turned quickly to run back up the track, to the car park.

Before we had got 100m, the rain squall mowed us down and we got fairly wet by the time we arrived back at the rental cars. Satisfied that we had packed plenty into our 5 hours, we headed back into town to meet up at The White Star Hotel for dinner with the Salt Lines team at 7pm.

*Silver Fern and Salt Lines crews catching up at The White Star Hotel*

We swapped stories from our first 270nm leg to Albany and had a great team dinner. While the Silver Fern crew had energetic plans to rise at 6am the following morning, the Salt Lines crew were keen to rise a couple of hours later and ease into the day at a more leisurely pace.

Exhausted, we slept well despite being pummelled against the fenders all night as the 30+ knot winds tried to force Silver Fern up against the downwind pontoon we were tied up to. The alarm clock went off at 6am and I was surprised to see the crew were already up and at the shower block. By 6:45am we were queued outside the local bakery and first in the door for coffees, quiches and pastries, for a breakfast on the go.

*The pastries, croissants and quiches from this place were delicious*

We downed breakfast ravenously and climbed into 2 of the rental cars to head for the hills and the 40km drive to the Porongurup National Park, so we could hike to the Granite Skywalk on top of Castle Rock.

*Rocks stacked like building blocks all around us*

It was really windy up on top and after walking up in one layer of clothing, we donned warm tops, jackets and beanies for the climb up ladders and rocks to the look out on the summit.

The skywalk has two lookouts with spectacular views across the park and surrounding farmland to the coast.

These views stretch to Albany on the south coast, Mount Gardner, Mount Manypeaks to the south-east and the Stirling Range to the north. The 2km walk up from the Castle Rock passes through jarrah, marri and karri forest, and also past the famous Balancing Rock.

This was a great final adventure with the 90-minute hike rounding out our 24 hours ashore in Albany. We were back at Silver Fern by 10:30am, with bread, rental car returns and refuelling to arrange before we could depart. Doris was back in her bunker when the crew drop the car keys back at the faceless mAvis counter, so any further grief was avoided.

My midday we were heading out of Albany, happy that we had packed so much in ready for a nap as soon as we cleared the coast. We hoisted the mainsail, with one reef in 10-15 knot breeze. By the time we cleared the headland, it was gusting 15-22 knots, with an ease in evening expected. Just 1,000nm across the Great Australian Bight and we’ll be in Port Lincoln.

Footnote: Apart from Doris, we loved Albany and all the people we met along the way were just great. Our crew agreed they’d love to come back here by plane/road and spend more time exploring. It is a great place.

David

Join the crew for a sailing adventure

Go Hard or Go Home

Tales of slaughter (click images to read)

End of Bight in Sight

Rounding a Great Cape