Victor Harbor - Whaling Old & New with Keith Conlon
One hundred and sixty years ago, Victor Harbor was on the map, hosting South Australia's first industry - whaling. Today, we go after the Southern Rights with cameras and videos whirring. Appropriately, the latest "whaleboat" leaves Granite Island, where, within months of this far flung colony's beginnings, a whaling station was established.
What would Captain Blenkinsop and his rough and ready lot make of Granite Island today? A causeway built when Victor was planned as a great shipping port, a groovy kiosk and cafÈ and a giant granite monument to nineteenth century engineering ingenuity and plain hard yacca - the breakwater......it would leave them flabbergasted.
The breakwater, for example, is more than three hundred metres long, a massive stone embankment to shelter the ships at the Screwpile Jetty. For all its improvements, however, the old whaling station site never did become a great port because railways drained the cargo away from the huge river trade bringing the goods down to Goolwa and by rail to Port Victor.
The whales were well gone, too, but as they return to winter in our coastal waters, the harbor makes a comfortable departure point for a long trip along Encounter Bay. We boarded a converted cray boat "Fatal Attraction", for its maiden expedition soaking up nature's gifts to the area. And maybe that would include a whale.
Heading around the seaward side of Granite Island (all granite boulders rising out of the Southern Ocean - a fascinating sight), we headed for the pronounced peninsula hill, The Bluff. Seeing the shoreline beyond the breakers at Yilki, I pondered on the scene back in the early 1800's, when Ramindjeri people had a semi-permanent camp there. They would have seen European and American whalers and sealers roaming the islands off the Fleurieu coast. There were some unhappy incidents too. Within months of South Australia getting off the ground officially, the South Australian Company had set up its own whaling station on The Bluff in 1837. Now, there were two in the bay.
That made for keen competition. The whale crews were very keen to chase the Southern Rights. Surely they'd breach and tale-flap as they do again now, but they generally moved slowly and floated when they were finally overcome....and that's why they were the "right" ones to catch. The whalers were at the rugged and dangerous end of the state's first export industry. "The Goshawk" called into the lee of Granite Island in 1837 to take 150 barrels of oil off to light the lamps of London and go into soaps and medicines. The great sieves in the whales' mouths - the baleen - were turned into umbrella spokes and corset stays.
As a northerly turned the ocean all choppy with scuds of seaspray, our fellow expeditioners talked about how nice it was to be aboard "Fatal Attraction" instead of a whale boat! Ours was sixty feet long, there's was twenty. We had the equivalent of eight big V8 engines, while they had a half dozen men manning the oars. Our boat cost about a million dollars, but they were at the rough and dubious end of society. Wright Island, just off The Bluff, reminded us of that. It was named after William Wright, a whaler who used to smuggle "rum and baccy" to American sealers out of Tasmania.
We motored westwards round The Bluff and past the holidaymakers, nook, Petrel Cove. They look very different from the Southern Ocean side, and that nautical view of all the coast and islands is an unexpected bonus of the whale-watching tour of the Bay. I'm looking forward to another trip when there's a steady swell that ends with the sudden violence and awesome beauty of the crash with the granite cliffs. Watching those clashes in wonder from the shore is one thing - but what's it like from out on the briny?
Our search for the elusive whale took us along the tall cliffs that disappear towards Cape Jervis from the top of The Bluff. They are taller and more darkly spectacular than we anticipated. We shot a sequence from the bow of the cray boat, where it's not unusual to see a pod of dolphins hop on the bow-wave for a game. No luck today.
The whales were almost gone by the 1850's along this coast, and the last was towed into The Bluff in 1872. The whale-watch on-board guides point out that actually sighting a whale is a bonus - after all, they are an endangered species. The Whale Centre at Victor Harbor does report it's been a brilliant season for whale-watching generally, however. There has been a sighting on three out of every five days on average, with some bursts of ten days in a row. The 'mid July count at the big whale nursery at the head of The Bight was 48 adults and 9 calves.
(To report a whale sighting, by the way, call the centre's office, and to get the daily update on whales everywhere along our coast, the number is: 1900-931-223).
Our nature bonus was still to come as "Fatal Attraction" headed back to West Island, not far from Petrel Cove. The islands and the ocean share a romantic and sometimes tempestuous relationship, and here was my first chance to see how they come together on "the other side" - the half of West Island that only seafarers see. Our skipper eased the boat to the edge of the sanctuary limits - no problem about the depth here, as these islands rise steeply as bowler hats of granite from the ocean floor.
Seabirds soar and dip past huge boulders, and our on-board guide Mary-Alice tipped we should keep a keen eye out for seals. She knew there was a colony here, and suddenly, there they were, slipping back and forth out of the sea from a steeply sloping slab. The kids on board gabbled as they spotted several pups among this group of New Zealand fur seals. Mary-Alice also pointed to huts that house University researchers into leafy sea-dragons when they come on diving expeditions of the island.
Those buildings hark back to another unusual sight on West Island. I posed a trivia question for Postcard viewers. "What's its connection with Parliament House on North Terrace?"
Back in the 1880's the Kapunda Marble Company opened a quarry on the island to remove granite for the basement level of the grand new building. It was re-opened again in the 1930's, because the second half of Parliament House was only complete fifty years later. There are obvious carved blocks and broken shards to pinpoint the old quarry site.
It was another "first" for me, and for all of our pioneer expeditioners on the big cray boat. The whale watch cruises are a totally new experience on the traditionally attractive South Coast. And when the Southern Rights are 'round, you will definitely see them in a novel way, too.
For more information on whales at Victor Harbor visit the South Australian Whale Centre
"Fatal Attraction" Whale Watch Cruise
Granite Island Nature Park, Victor Harbor SA 5211
Ph (08) 8552 7555
Fax (08) 8552 8011
email granite.island@bigpond.comCruise Details
11am & 1.30 pm daily
Adults $49
Concession $45
Children $39
Family $160 (2 adults, 2 children, plus $20 per additional child)South Australian Whale Centre
Victor Harbor SA 5211Whale sightseeing reports
ph (08) 8552 5644
Whale Information Hotline
ph 1900 931 223
