D’Estrees Bay Self-guided Drive - Stop 1 - SA

Looking out from here between 1841 and 1844 you may have witnessed a Sperm
or Southern Right Whale being hauled ashore.
In the early years of European settlement in South Australia, among the first goods
exported were barrels of whale oil and stiff bales of salted sealskins. The whaling
industry at D’Estrees Bay was short-lived – only four years – and there are no records
of the number of whales caught.
‘The whales were sighted from high look-outs overlooking the coast; the whalemen
gave chase in fast clinker built, cedar boats that were about ten metres in length.
Once a whale was secured it was towed back to the shore for boiling down or ‘trying
out’. The whale was hauled ashore up a timber ramp or into a natural stone platform
where the ‘cutting in’ took place.
The blubber removed was thrown into large iron ‘try-pots’ in which the oil was
extracted by heating. Try-pots were originally fuelled by wood but as the process
progressed, the ‘scraps’ of tried out blubber and other material were used as fuel.’
(Whaling & Sealing Sites in South Australia, Kostoglou & McCarthy, 1991 Department
of Environment and Planning.)
There are few traces today of the whaling industry. Try-pots and other relics
were removed decades ago.
Whales and dolphins are now protected in Australia and whale products can
not be imported into the country. Today Humpback Whales and Southern
Right Whales are making a slow but encouraging recovery.
Between May and October you could be ‘in the right place at the right
time’ and glimpse the tail of a Southern Right Whale rising from the ocean’s
surface, before splashing to the depths below. These whales migrate from
the Antarctic to the warmer southern Australian coastal waters to give birth
and mate. During this season they fast, and feed again on krill, when they return south.