Figurehead on the brig Amity, replica of first ship to Albany
We drove the rather dull 480 km between Esperance and Albany today. Except for one stop for fuel, and another for lunch, we just drove. There really isn’t much to see, except for huge storage areas where the farmers deliver grain. They call them “bins” but they are as big as hockey rinks. There seemed to be quite a few of these sites, perhaps one every 40 or 50 kilometres.
We were surprised to read on the sign at Jerramungup, the town where we ate lunch, that soil salinity is a major problem because the roots of grain crops don’t draw down the deep subsoil moisture like the original trees did. Because of this the water table is rising, bringing salt to the surface, thus causing problems with growing plants.
After we’d checked in to our caravan park, we drove to the information centre to get the locations around here where we can snorkel. They gave us several suggestions, as well as places to body board. On the drive to the information building we saw an old two masted ship on the land, so we stopped there on the way back. It is a replica of a ship that sailed here from Sydney in 1826 with a crew and convicts, and were the first settlers in the area.