Exploring Albany

Tuesday 7^th February, 2017.

Hard to believe we’ve been on the road for a week already! Today’s itinerary, after taking care of some boring necessities like laundry, include a visit to Whale World, and some coastal sights along the way. First stop, and very impressive, is the Gap and Natural Bridge. A platform was built, suspended over some active wave action, best not to look down if you don’t like heights! The Natural Bridge is self explanatory, the waves have worked their way into the rock and weakened it, causing it to gradually break apart and fall in to the ocean, forming a bridge of rock. 

Next stop is The Blowholes where there is a sign in the carpark giving a diagnostic of whether the blowholes will be performing. Seeing the weather is near perfect and the sea is calm, the chances of the Blowholes being active is very slim and no-one feels like walking the 800m to find out! I’d like to go to Stony Hill for the 360 degree view but time is getting away and we need a good hour for Whale World. A guided tour leaves on the hour, but we need some morning tea first. The Galley Café does good coffee and cakes and by the time we finish up the tour has only just commenced. Jo sits this one out as there’s only so many times you can go, it’s interesting, to a point. As we go around the various areas where the whales were ‘processed’ we notice the weather changing and by the time we’re done, it’s raining. Back to the café to wait it out, it doesn’t last long. Interesting fact: the last whale was caught off Albany on November 20, 1978. 1978!! 2 years later, Malcolm Fraser signed the document that protected whales against further hunting.

Lunch back in town and then off to the Sandalwood producer, Mt Romance, 10 minutes out of town on the Albany Highway.  Lots of products for sale, but not a great deal of information about the process of growing or producing, which is a shame, because in Penang last year, we met an old man, Mr Lee, who made joss sticks from sandalwood imported from Western Australia.

A bit of shopping fills in the rest of the afternoon, and Sue gets in touch to put back collection of my woodcuts till tomorrow. Don’t need much dinner after our big lunch, so it’s just cheese and nibbles for dinner, washed down with a few wines. I spot sunset out the window so grab the camera and head to the beach and hopefully get some good photos.