Albany

Wednesday 9 - Saturday 12 February

We left Denmark around 10am on Wednesday and made our way to Albany. Kitty wanted to stop by the Bush Food Factory on the way but it was full with a coach of oldies so we just kept going. We got into Albany and went to the visitor information centre where Lawrie saw a marron farm brochure. He'd been wanting to eat marron the whole time we were on the south coast so we went there for lunch.

Lawrie and his marron

Seeing as we were so close, after lunch we made our way to Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve. Talk about amazing scenery - white as white sand and crystal clear water. We split up at Little Beach - Kitty went for a walk and Lawrie went swimming. This may not have been the best idea as Lawrie got hit by a few unexpected waves and got dumped (a lot). He made it out ok though and we went back to Albany to claim our spot at the Middleton Beach Caravan Park

Two Peoples Bay

Little Beach

Lawrie at Little Beach before he nearly died

Kitty at Little Beach

View from the walk trail

Rockpools next to Little Beach

View of the big rocks at Two Peoples from the other side

Just Perfect (except the water is freezing)

It was the first nice day we'd had in ages so we decided to make the most of it by cycling along the beach to Emu Point. We got icecreams there and Lawrie went for a swim. We set up our tent when we got back and had a pretty quiet night.

Beach on our ride

Emu Point

By Thursday the weather had turned bad again so instead of walking we did a driving tour of the area south-west of town. Our first stop was the Great Southern Distilling Company where we got an awesome platter for  only $25, did a tour and Lawrie sampled whiskey, gin, whisky liqueur, plum liqueur, meen vodka (a bit too peppery) and absinthe (nice, but low on alch, some WA rule). The whiskeys are all small batch (big bucks) and the gin is in the top 10 in the world. Needless to say - it was Kitty's turn to drive after lunch.

Whiskey (Vodkas to rear)

Lawrie drinking his M29

Lunch - all this for $25!

Heading further south we reached the Albany wind farm. It sits on the hills above the ocean and produces 22MW or half of the town's energy needs. It was blowing a gale and it was a pretty calm day so they chose a good spot.

Wind Turbines

Kitty at the top of hill

View from under the turbines - it was pretty freaky watching
those big blades from this angle

View down to the Southern Ocean

Our last major stop for the day was the Gap and Natural Bridge. They're basically just cool rock formations.

The Gap

Kitty at the Gap

Lawrie holding up a section above the natural bridge

Natural Bridge

View to the West

Friday we awoke to howling wind and rain lashing sideways, we'd planned to head  Porongurup National Park for a walk to Castle Hill, complete with ladders etc but decided the weather would get the best of us. We settled for more trip planning, lunch in town & a movie (The Kings Speech). On our way back we stopped off at Wignalls Winery, there were no MAME cabinets or redheads in sight! They made some very nice wines so we added a Chardonnay, Pinot Noir & Tawny Port to our collection.