Good morning all! Yesterday we spent most of our town on the other side of the bay from Eden, exploring spots that were important for whaling in the late 1800s. For this, we had to go to Ben Boyd National Park. Boyd was one of the largest landholders in New South Wales who lived in the area. He was a failed entrepreneur who borrowed money, wasted it all, and then ran away before the bank reclaimed the debt. He relied mostly on what was basically slave labor in order to complete his works. We went to go visit Boyd Tower, which is a tower he built with the intent that when the Killers came to wake up the men, a fire could be lit at the top alerting the whole town across the bay that a whale chase was on. This proved to be very ineffective, and mostly a failure, but the Tower still stands today. When we had driven 30-40 minutes down to the park, we got to the road that takes you to Boyd's Tower and found it closed, as they were doing tree work along the road. We were all pretty disappointed, having driven all the way out there, but Lew, always looking out for us, immediately decided he was going to pull into the Marshall's office down the street, and try to get us access to the area. It was pretty strange when we entered the area because there were logged trees everywhere, hidden from the outside by a line of trees. We didn't know that logging was allowed in National Parks, but apparently it is. However, he managed to talk his way into getting us permission (go Lew go!) so they gave us a walkie talkie so we could tell them when we were going in and out so their work could stop. When we drove through all the construction, we finally got to the walking path, where the trees looked super cool and mysterious. If it had been misty and nighttime, it definitely would have looked like something out of a horror movie.
We walked out to the tower and it was very cool, sitting out on one of the cliffs. We could go inside, but weren't allowed to go up to the top because it was too dangerous. One side of the tower had BOYD carved into the stone in huge letters at the top. From the tower there were two lookouts that looked out over the ocean, that were absolutely gorgeous. The rocks of the cliffs were super red, and contrasted really nicely with the cliffs and water crashing below. We hung out there for a bit, taking pictures and listening to the waves, before hiking back of the path and through the forest to return to the bus. We walkie talkied our way back out through the area, and then drove down the road until we reached the path to the Whaling Station. We walked past a cool old house (that apparently you can rent out and stay in, but I think that would be kind of creepy) down to the beach, where some of the old whaling equipment still sits around. There are these birds called bell birds that are supposed to make a noise sounding like bells, but I think they sounded more like submarines. There were some people fishing down on the beach, so we waved at them as we went past. The most troubling thing I saw was on the signposts explaining the different whaling station things, the word 'Aboriginal' was crossed off whenever it was mentioned. Yikes.
When we all finished there, we headed over to Boydtown (where the house of Ben Boyd is, which is now a restaurant and inn). He had hoped to make this town he planned to build the capital of Australia, but obviously that didn’t turn out either. I had some delicious chicken schnitzel with chips and salad. We got to walk around a little bit afterwards which was pretty, but it was really windy so it was a bit chilly. A bird got into the building which was rather terrifying, so I ran away with Tori to explore elsewhere. When we were done there, we had about an hour off back at the hotel before we had to be in Sharon's apartment to watch High Tide. It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but Sharon loved it and will not stop raving about it. Bleck! We weren't able to go into town tonight like I wanted (so we'll have to do that tomorrow), but Tori, Mariah and Shea hosted pasta night which was pretty goo (but obviously not as good as taco night). We were all pretty tired, so we planned to work in bed, but soon we were all asleep. Oh, we also watched House Rules and one of our favorite couples got eliminated. Maddi and Lloyd noooooooo! Finally all caught up on this blog, woohoo! More tonight about what goes on today! Don't forget to flip through the slideshow!