A Wander Around Heritage Park Albany...

I should actually have headed this post a little walk around a very, very small part of Heritage Park!  This post will mainly be photos of the lovely old Pre-Federation Military buildings, rather than lots of text. 😊

Note the Union Jack! Yep! These old buildings date back to before Federation (which was 1901) when the present day states were actually British colonies.

Back and side views of the building in the first photo...on the left of the side view of the building, the Aboriginal flag is flying.

The same flag from another vantage point...

Another old military building...with an gun carriage? or wagon? on the veranda...

All the buildings are beautiful restored and maintained...

An old water tower...and an 'army hut' type building in the photo below that. 

Just 2 of the many 'igloo huts' scattered throughout this section of the park.

The First Aid Post...

Up the hill a bit and on a flat area of land, were lots of old guns and missiles. The guns were huge! 

There are some lovely gardens in this area too...and that view too, of course!

There are some modern buildings too...sorry it's a bit dark...

Here's another photo of that building. It's the quite new National ANZAC Centre.

On our first day in Albany, we had checked out the displays etc in the grounds and by then it was 4.45 pm. And the Centre closed at 5pm...so we had to go back next day. But that's another post still to come. 

ANZAC Memorial Heritage Park, Albany...

On our recent Western Australian holiday, we stayed in Albany for 2 nights and crammed in as much exploring of this city as we could in that time. The ANZAC Centre in the large Heritage Park was one attraction that really impressed us.

We had arrived in Albany mid afternoon and after checking into our motel, we made our first visit to Heritage Park. (Finding it impossible to see all that was on display meant that we would return the next morning.) 

This memorial is all about the First World War...it was from the port of Albany in November 1914 that the first Australian defence personnel set sail for the war zone in the northern hemisphere; a long way from home! http://anzacalbany.com.au/

The walkway up the hill has boards listing  the ships in those first 2 convoys...

A lot of reading to do...😉

And the view looking downhill...

 

The walkway went up to a lookout over the port area, but there were a couple of interesting places we stopped at on the way up the hill.

Growing up in Brisbane I had always been fascinated by the 'igloo' buildings scattered throughout the city, including the buildings at our old airport.  These buildings had been built by the US forces who were in Brisbane during WW2. Well this Heritage Park in Albany was an ' igloo lover's paradise'! Lol. Americans call them Nissen huts but Aussies had nicknamed them igloos. ( and there aren't many left in Brisbane any more)

So when I saw this igloo, I just had to stop and explore. The anchor out the front certainly indicated the naval connection. 

And behind the Nissen Hut, the remains of an old building...

The next little detour we took on the way up to the lookout was a gun emplacement. 

We walked through where the missiles (fakes of course!) were stored and then walked down a passageway which led out to where the gun was...

 

After these 2 little detours, we walked up the path to the lookout...

 

The view of the Harbour was wonderful...and VERY windy. 

This board pictured below, showed the line up of ships of the First Convoy all ready to sail off to the battlefields. The ships were quite an eclectic lot; many were non naval vessels which had been pressed into service because of the war. 

From there, we walked downhill (and out of the wind) and wandered around this historical site. 

There was a garden area that honoured women...but Spring hadn't really come to this area when we were there but I can imagine what this garden would look like when the warmer weather arrived.

In the next post I'll continue sharing our experience at this wonderful and historical site.