Southern Ports to offer public boat tours of all three regional ports at Bunbury, Albany and Esperance

In a first for Southern Ports, all its regional ports including Esperance will open to the public for free community boat tours. Taking place on October 10 and 11, the tours will provide passengers with a rare glimpse of port operations from the water, while they also learn from Southern Ports staff about the ports and the products they trade. The tours were originally due to take place in May but were postponed because of unfavourable weather conditions resulting in rough seas. With the weather warming up now, Southern Ports chief executive Keith Wilks said it was the perfect time to reoffer the chance for the community to get up close to port operations in a safe way. “We’re proud of the economic contribution we make, and we’re excited to give our communities who live and work right beside us the opportunity to see and hear more about our operations,” he said. “We’re lucky to work in such a unique environment — not only in terms of the scale of our operations but the size of our infrastructure and the vessels that visit — and we’re hoping these tours provide people with a new perspective of our ports.” The tours are free but gold coin donations will be sought, with proceeds going to Foodbank. “We’re hoping to raise additional funds for our partner Foodbank, which provides food security for many people across our regions — so while these tours are free, we’re asking guests to donate generously to Foodbank on the day,” he said. The 45-minute tours — also running in Albany and Bunbury — will run from 9am to 4.45pm on both days. Spots are limited and can be booked at southernports.com.au.