We went to Albany, a town east of Denmark, and went to Whale World. We are now experts in the history of whaling. Seriously, we could be flensers (people that used giant saws to cut off whale blubber) if we wanted to. Here's a pic of the whaling ship, Cheynes IV.
We got to tour the ship- Kaiya's steering...
Hiding in the tiny lockers in the crew's cabins.
A pygmy blue whale skeleton. Apparently, they didn't hunt blue whales b/c they were too big to be profitable. It took too long to "process" and meanwhile the other whales awaiting "processing" in the bay were being eaten away by sharks. So they primarily hunted sperm whales- a much more "manageable" size. See, told you we became whale know-it-alls.
Random picture of Mina at Whale World. Just proof that we're still loyal Y fans despite 2 1/2 years overseas!
We hiked (ok, walked) to see the Blowholes (big rocks by the ocean) in Albany. The blowholes have deep crevices in the granite that stretch all the way down to the sea floor. When the waves hit just right, it sends a "blow" of water/air up the holes. Of course when we arrived the waves weren't blowing any sprays of water, just air. Oh well, the views were still amazing.
At the Pentland Alpaca Stud & Animal Farm. Since we pretty much go to every single zoo or animal farm we come across we couldn't ignore this one in Denmark. They take their alpacas seriously here. You should see all the ribbons they've won with their prize-winning alpacas. It's a big deal. Emi almost got spit on by one of them- she was less than thrilled. We enjoyed seeing other animals as well.
Our next stop: Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk.
Brian and I did this over a year ago and knew we wanted to come back eventually and bring the kids. Mina had some very striking poses throughout this trip...
Basically, you walk on these metal bridges through the forest. Tingle trees are so, so tall...so you get up pretty high. You get so high up that you sway on the bridge and have to hold tight to keep from falling over (or maybe that's just my big belly keeping me off balance).
At the highest point- 40 meters above ground level (over 120 ft)! Since you walk on see-thru metal crates you can get a good feel for how high up you are!
After the tree top walk we got to walk along the forest ground and get up close to the tree trunks.
I have no idea what she's doing here but I love the pose!
This one too...
Mina insisted Brian take this pic of her pretending to be a koala.
We saw a sign posted along the road advertising "All-Day Lunch" and laughed when we noticed the restaurant was only open from 11:30 to 3:30. So we had to stop and enjoy our lunch here. They had a great big marron statue in front. Obviously, the girls took advantage. They pretty much served only 2 local favorites- marron & lamb. So I had the marron...and Brian had the lamb bolognaise. Pretty tasty actually!
We also stopped by Green's Pool in Williams Bay. Easily one our favorite places! Gigantic rock formations to climb and explore. And the water is so calm...too bad we left our wetsuits behind otherwise it would've been great for swimming/snorkeling. (Ok, I can't fit my wetsuit right now...but the rest of the family could've swam!) We'll have to come back another time during the summer months! We still had plenty to keep us busy- Brian and the kids spent about an hour trying to catch all of the crabs they kept seeing lodged between all of the rocks!
On our last morning in Denmark I took this picture of the sunrise from the doorstep of our chalet. Beautiful!
And that folks is the end of our Denmark trip. Fun stuff. Hope you all had a great weekend as well!
