Albany

---

Walpole to Albany

Leaving Walpole we headed back east to Albany to complete the section of the Sthn Ocean Hwy across to Hopetoun that we had missed previously when we went up to Wave Rock after our stay in Esperance. We are looking forward to this section of the coast as the beaches between Albany and Hopetoun come with some ‘big wraps’. Our journey through to Denmark was uneventful and we enjoyed, again, the magnificent forests that enveloped the road.

From Denmark across to Albany the country changed as we left the mountains and forests behind us into undulating mixed farmland. Agriculture is diverse here with cropping playing a major role but beef and dairy farming, horticulture and vineyards are also well represented. After several weeks of country driving and only ‘biggish’ towns to navigate, it was a shock for us to arrive in Albany, and the Christmas traffic didn’t help either! We made a ‘bee line’ for our park that we had booked into and set up quickly so that we could get into town for some Christmas shopping of our own and a bit of sightseeing.

Albany (pop 25,200), is significantly bigger than anywhere we have been for a while, it is a picturesque city on Western Australia’s south coast and is the sight of the state’s first European Settlement. On Boxing Day in 1826, Major Edmond Lockyer with a party of soldiers and convicts from NSW came ashore to establish a military and penal outpost. Ninety years later Albany was the embarkation point for Australian Troops during World War 1. However, Albany is most famous for being a Whaling Station. A whaling Industry began in the 1940’s which defined the town until the Cheynes Beach Whaling Co closed in 1978. Whaling was Albany’s biggest industry with company chasers taking up to 850 whales in a season. There is now a major tourist attraction where you can see a restored whale-chaser, Cheynes IV, whale skeletons and the old processing works. This is the only whaling museum in the world created from a working Whaling Station. Today whale watching has taken it’s place. Albany, lying within the protected shelter of the Princess Royal Harbour on the edge of King George Sound is now one of the state’s most popular tourist destinations and let me tell you they are all here for Xmas in 2011 !! Albany boasts more than 50 historical buildings dating back to the early years of settlement including the Old Gaol (1851) and Residency Museum (1850). Albany, as you can imagine from the population, is a city well serviced with every imaginable National branded store represented here and a host of other retail shopping.

When we booked our site in Albany it was a second choice to where we had wanted to be at Xmas, and after just one night we were contacted from a short list where we had left our details to say ‘a site was available do you want it?’ After a quick discussion, (all three of us!), we decided to change our plans and head to Hopetoun and take the site on offer. We would get back to Albany on our way to Mt Barker in the New Year and see more of the city in a hopefully less frantic atmosphere in the New Year.

---