Davidson's Whaling Station and the tale of Ben Boyd

This tranquil beach above is where they would bring the dead whales ashore to dissect them and then boil them down to get all the fat and oils. Whales were used to produce many goods, from oil for lamps, soaps and cosmetics, and bones used for corsetry.

Until, thank the Goddess, they found other ways to produce these 

goods and killing Whales went out of fashion.

I can only imagine the mess and the smell that must have come from the processing of whales.

I guess the whalers did what they had to do to survive, 

and didn't comprehend, or value, the damage they were doing to the whale population.

I wonder what Edith's grandchildren will think about this current generation of humans,

burning fossil fuel as if the supply is eternal, and destroying the earth with pollution and plastics.

In the year 2100 they may be just as appalled at our behaviour in 2019 

as we are by the whalers in the 1800's.

So I choose not to judge the whalers too harshly, but hope our generation have learnt a lesson about repeating mistakes of the past.  But we probably haven't, we'll just make different mistakes.

Must have been very isolated living way out here.

Then we visited Ben Boyd tower.

Mr Boyd was a very rich land holder, 

he built this tower to be a lighthouse, but when it was built he couldn't get 

permission for the light so it just became a whale lookout tower. 

A bit of a folly, really.

Here was a rich man who thought he was above the law.

He imported native persons from some of the Pacific Islands to use as workers.

Sounds a bit like slavery to me folks!

Anyway, he ended up bankrupt and joined the Californian gold-rush.

Then he met his comeuppance, in1851 he was killed by natives in the Solomon Islands.

They never found his body, I hope they ate him.

But they named the National Park, Ben Boyd after him.

Below, Wolfies first dirt road!

We had to give him a bath on the way back.

And I bought a boat painting at the local craft show.