Albany, W.A.

Autumn is in the air, and we're packing our stuff & heading to Albany in W.A. The planned stay was for three nights at a self-contained unit, and we were so eager to get out of Perth.. :) It took around 4 hours from Perth to Albany depending on how fast you drive, and the road was mostly straight and long, and empty.

Long, empty road all the way...

Albany is a coastal town on the Southern side of Perth, a rather popular tourist destination that boasts the Gap (not the clothing shop :P), a dramatic 24 meter ocean drop, natural granite formation in the shape of a bridge, whale watching activities, the striking Middleton beach and King George sound, just to mention a few.

We made a few stops along the way, including Donnybrook shire, an apple producing town with rows and rows of apples growing in hectares of orchards, they were beautiful! this was where we found Spring Valley Orchards where you can pick your own fruits for a fee, a few wineries, and Solarfruit, a producer of natural fruit bars, chocolate covered apricots and the like. (great to munch on the way to the next town..)

Then we stopped at the tiny Bridgetown, where we saw a museum with a number of interesting exhibits including puzzles! 

NYC puzzle with the Twin Towers

As it was Autumn, however, whale watching was out of the season in this region; but we had other places to go to during our stay. It was more of an eco-tourism with plenty of walking trails, beach strolling and eating hearty foods at the town centre ^_^.. Talking about food, you gotta have the breakfast menu at the York St. Cafe, mushrooms, toasts, crispy bacon, tomato and scrambled eggs never tasted that good!

almost blown by the wind...

Natural bridge

The wind farm was an interesting one.. They are built to create a electricity for about 75% of Albany's electricity needs. You need to walk up the trail to reach the lookout near the turbines, but it was such a nice day for a hike and the view was quite nice from up here... 

seascape surrounding the area

all that walking really was enough to work up an appetite, so at night we were hunting for food places and enjoyed the meal at an Italian restaurant that I couldn't recall the name of.. -_- the food was great and though the place was packed (since it was a weekend night), it was still comfortable to dine in at. We ordered veal steak and polpette and they were awesome!!


There are still a number of attractions such as the Dog rock, Old Town hall, replica of Brig Amity and HMAS ship wreck site (this one is for diving enthusiasts..) that we saved up for the next day. On the last day, as we made our way back to Perth, we passed by Plantagenet Winery and tasted a few of their wines, and loved their muscat wine. It was a really nice dessert wine (for those who love sweet wines...), so we bought some home. :)