Eden, Australia. Day 55

Eden and its surrounding villages lie along the scenic Sapphire Coast, some of Australia's best coastal districts. These sheltered waters are home to the award-winning oysters of the Sapphire Coast. We strolled through the streets of Pambula, and explored the the town lined with colonial-era buildings on the Main Street. At the Eden Killer Whale Museum, we learned about the story of Old Tom, Eden's most famous orca, and how he established a unique arrangement with human whalers. To alert them of the presence of baleen whales in the bay, he would breach and slap his tail at the mouth of the Towamba River. Old Tom's skeleton is now on display at the museum.
Eden was an important port for Australia's powerful whaling industry for more than a century. The whalers who operated out of Eden had an advantage over their competitors. In a unique example of mutualism, a local pod of orcas, apocryphally led by Old Tom, would assist in the hunt by herding the whales into nearby bays for easy dispatching by the whalers, in exchange for an easy meal. Today, the town's focus is on whale conservation, but its intriguing whaling history is on display at the Eden Killer Whale Museum, including the skeleton of Old Tom.Read more