Many years ago, I found this book in one of my favourite op-shops for two dollars. It's the amazing story of a pack of killer whales who, for almost a hundred years, returned to Eden, on Twofold Bay, NSW, a small town just two hundred clicks south of Batemans Bay, to assist local fisherman during the whaling season.
These killers would actually herd whales into the bay and then attract the land-based whalemen. As the boats put out from the shore, one killer would lead them to where the rest of the pack had surrounded the whale, working much as sheep dogs do for drovers. After the kill the pack claimed the dead whale's tongue and lips as reward, the fishermen removing the rest of the carcass a few days later.
I never quite finished reading this book but was reminded of it today when I visited the Eden Killer Whale Museum where the same book was on sale for $29. I had gone there with a new neighbour who is from that tiny, wealthy landlocked country in Western Europe surrounded entirely by Belgium, France, and Germany - anyone who can correctly name it wins a free twelve-month subscription to this blog - and recently settled in Nelligen just a few houses up from "Riverbend". He had always wanted to visit the museum and suggested I should join him on this trip, and so we set off early this morning to make a whole day of it.
By this time you will want to know more about this, so here we go:
But before we got to Eden, we stopped for lunch at the Robyn's Nest Lakeside Resort, which an old friend had bought some years ago to get rid of all the hard-earned money he had squirelled away in the past.
Listening to my friend's story reminded me of the story of that booklover - not me! - who, having won the lottery, opened his long dreamt-of bookshop. Asked how long he would run the bookshop, he replied, "Until I run out of money". My friend's usual open-handed hospitality only made things worse, because even though he was still in town when we arrived, he had already instructed his staff to start serving us lunch and drinks and not to ask us for any money. (If I had known, I would've ordered a bottle of the most expensive wine on the list which, from memory, was over $5,800 !!! Could someone please email me a copy of that wine list, so I can double-check my memory, as I find it quite hard to believe that anyone would order that stuff. I suspect they only put it on the list to make people who order a wine in the more usual $300 price range feel like they're getting a bargain.)
Hint: I have started wearing braces as I no longer have a waist to speak of!
Not having seen him for six or seven years, I asked to have my photo taken with him, but having grown considerably older since then - I far more than he - I decided to publish the above 'headless' version only. My friend's newfound home is truly spectacular, and Padma and I would love to go back and book in for a whole weekend, perhaps even for a whole week, but only if my far too generous friend allows me to pay full price.
At my age, my back goes out more often than I do, but I'm now, tired and hungry, safely home again. It's been a long but wonderful day and, with the weekend coming up, I'll be looking through my library to find Tom Mead's "Killers of Eden" to finally finish reading this amazing story.
