One of the first tours we took on our trip to South Australia was of the HMAS Whyalla. The Whyalla was the first ship built at Wyalla’s shipyards in 1941. It was one of 66 ships built in Whyalla and one of 4 Bathurst corvettes built for the second World War. Whyalla, South Australia has a steel works which made ship building easy. After the war the HMAS Whyalla was sold to Victorian Public Works and became the Rip and spent 38 years working as a lights maintenance ship. In 1984, she was sold to Whyalla City Council to become the centre piece of the Visitors Information Centre and Maritme Museum.
Photo credit: Google Images
Nobody would have thought that 46 years after her birth on the Whyalla slipway, the HMAS Whyalla would go back up the same slipway as she began her journey to her new home. Moving the Whyalla however didn’t go according to plan and became an engineering feat initself. It took major planning, problem solving and machinery to finally complete the task. The teams were given many sleepless nights and in the end according to the following documentary it took 220 tonnes of trailers, 328 wheels assisted by 2 prime movers to take her the 2 kilometres from the slipway to her final resting place 2 metres above the ground.
The HMAS Whyalla has now been restored back to her former glory as a WW2 corvette. Our tour guide was amazing and she was filled with interesting facts about the ship. I was fascinated to see what life on board would have been like for the young sailors. It was definitely a unique experience and worth staying the weekend in Whyalla to see. The Maritime Museum is on site as well and was also very interesting covering all of the areas varied maritime history.
I loved that they have used the ships chain and anchors in the garden area.
