Those of you who live in Western Australia have probably enjoyed the peace and the beauty of Albany, the town that was once a whaling station and which was nearly settled by the French. When
Two People’s Bay, Albany
walking along the coast down there, you feel the winds blowing up from the Antarctic and readily accept that this is the first place where those cold cold winds touch land. In winter it’s bl—y freezing. An amazing place though, as the colours of the sea, the rocks and crisp white sand make for perfect photographs and even I can feel like an artist of sorts.
Totally the wrong time of day and wrong direction, with the sun blinding me. Amazing.
Facing directly into the sun, unable to see what I was taking, I watched the sand and clicked as the water came towards me. And look what happened.
No entry fee but this sign greets you at the end of the drive through the Albany Sculpture Park.
I guess that for most tourists heading to Albany, the Whaling Station (now a museum) is pretty high up on the list of must see’s, but for me, having seen the real thing in action, back when it was still operating, I was horrified then and had no desire to revisit it, so we looked for different places of interest and found this amazing private sculpture park.
A timber chainsaw through a tree.
A resting swagman looks real.
The guy who owns
it has created birds, animals, even people, out of timber, whether the standing trees or as sculptures which he has carved in his workshop and transferred to their present positions. We were told that he only uses a chain saw.
Tortoise family
Apparently Michael Angelo searched for the character he wanted by first sensing its existance within the lump of marble. I suspect that our man from Albany works in a similar way with living trees and lumps of wood, bringing them into existance for us to admire and enjoy.
The truck is real. Man and dog are wooden but what characters.
Is this owl real?
Are they real emus?
As is often the case when traveling, it’s the surprise discovery that we most remember. We were told of this place as we were about to leave Perth but it was so much more than anticipated. I hope that this partial coverage will convince those of you who intend to visit our southern town, to take the short drive out of Albany and support this original project.
Watch for the next day’s outings when we went to the Gap and the Albany Museum where we were fortunate to see an exhibition of unusual Aboriginal art by Bill Harney.