Day 2 – 20/02/15 Afternoon trip from
Southport to Cockle Creek / Whale Sculpture / Fishers Point
At around 3pm the 4 of us set out for the
40 minute drive to Cockle Creek, eager to visit the most southerly point of
Australia accessible by car – Cockle Creek. (In Southwest National Park).
Much of the drive is along a very bumpy
dirt road but it is well worth a visit as the stunning beauty of the coastline
and pristine white sandy beaches are breathtaking. There is a short walk to the
Whale sculpture, a fitting monument to the many whales that have past this
coastline over the years. The sculpture Stephen Walker calls it ‘A Celebration
of The Southern Right Whale” – his words
‘Conception,
birth and nurture
far beyond our human scale
this
three month calf
begins
a Southern Ocean Journey
to
feed, to play, to live a yearly cycle
begun
five million years ago
This
rhythm of leviathans
we
witness now
as
these tender tactile animals
return
to our waters every year’
However the main walk we wished to
experience was the Fishers Point walk, a 2 hour, predominately beach walk over
the white sandy bays and there is also much scrambling over boulders and some
soft deep seaweed heaps. This is such a special place and it seems that those
who visit here feel this strongly, so much so that there seems to be a certain sense
of camaraderie between the walkers probably brought on by the remoteness and
beauty of this extreme southern part of Australia. This is what we experienced
anyway as we exchanged words with all those we met. A lone lady who was returning told us she had lost her
favourite beaten up straw hat and should we find it could we please return it
to the information office. We found the hat and handed it to a couple who were
on also on their way back and asked if they wouldn’t mind returning the hat. Of
course they said they were happy to do so. Some bays further on another couple
saw Steve & I sitting on a log on the beach and enjoying the view and told
us of what they had seen – the ruins of the old whaling settlement, the ancient
beacon and how around 300 people had lived at Fishers Point all going in and
out by boat, the reef we could see, not too far away and how it attracted the
whales and drew them into the bay often then to be killed there by the whalers.
A young German guy keen to say
hello – we told him to look out for Walter & Gill who had gone on to
complete the walk together as Steve was having a few issues with his knee and I
was a bit hesitant to continue as there were lots more rocks to scramble over.
So we had decided to just sit there on a weathered beach log and take in the
beauty and peacefulness. Walter & Gill told us later that he had indeed
stopped them for a chat.
It was interesting that this place, the
most southern part of Australia is closer to Antarctica than it is to Cairns. This
is a special place that we will long remember.
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| The Whale Sculpture |
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| Bull kelp (largest kelp species in the world) |
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| First beautiful bay of Fishers Point walk |
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| Shell tree - so this is where they come from |
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| The bays Walter & Gill walked |
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| A beautiful place to sit and wait |
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| Special place |
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