G’day Mate!

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Met the lady on the other side of us this morning who’s a seasoned traveller from Oz and really helped firm up our plans based on her experience. We’re doing a long drive down to Albany on the South Coast today and will then slowly work our way back up to Perth along the coast road over the next 9 days. However, first she recommended we hunt down a copy of “Camps Australia Wide 5” which gives details of numerous free sites across the county which will save us a fortune. One shopping centre, a newsagent, and two camping suppliers later we had the book.

The 5 hour trek to Albany really gave us a good idea of the scale of this country. We spent around 90 minutes on the freeway with nothing to look at but trees on either side - oh, there was the odd white cross marking where people had unfortunately died in accidents, mainly it seems from tiredness. First impression of Oz is that it is very brown! And it looks like everyone lives in bungalows with tin roofs. And there’s lots of eucalyptus trees!

We stopped at a small township called “Williams” which had a restaurant, boutique, gift shop, and heritage centre, the latter was closed and the others were way out of our price bracket! The outback opened up a little and we saw numerous cows and sheep, the odd deer, and some fascinating birds that holds out considerable promise for the rest of our trip. Another short stretch of the legs at Kojonup only to discover the coffee shop had just closed (although we did see a Black Cockatoo which made some incredible sounds as he hopped by!)

A bit more luck an hour later at Mt Barker, which had an amazing collection of colonial style buildings, and seemingly more churches than houses! After a coffee at a picturesque hotel we complete the final 50Kms to Albany. Well, John had the coffee, but as we’d been passing several wineries, I thought it only right to sample some of the local produce - a Forest Hills Sav Blanc! Very tasty too! We were sitting in the bar a little phased out as the last couple of days had been a bit hectic, when the barmaid asked whether it was still cold outside (it was mid-30s). A little nonplussed, we said we didn’t know as we’d been in the van. I put on my jolly voice and said “well, they say it’ll be in the 40s next week”. “Thank goodness” she says “I hate it when it gets this cold!” We just looked at her glumly.

First impressions of Albany were that it’s a really pretty and quite relaxed coastal town with some fantastic views - certainly worth a better look tomorrow. Our priority however was to get to a campsite before it got too late. The one we’d set our sights on, called “Cosy Corner”, was another 25km away!

“Cosy Corner” was just as imagined, although officially full, we managed to “pitch-up” with two other vans on a small heath land clearing just above the main site. We’re so close to the beach you can see the sea and all you hear is the crashing of the waves! A fantastic chicken salad for dinner which we ate al-fresco while the sun set - a long day draws to an end but with the knowledge that we’ve done the only long drive we needed to do on this portion of the trip.

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Comments

[Steve]

"And it looks like everyone lives in bungalows with tin roofs." It's a big country - no need for two story terraced homes. Though you will see them in the denser inner city areas of the various Capitols. Though they are not called Bungalows in Australia (a bungalow is a type of single-story house that originated in India - due the history the British have with India any single story house they call a bungalow, they'll learn :) Cheers Steve