Well, our weather luck finally ran out here in Western Australia. Since we arrived in mid October we have had lovely weather up and down the coast from Perth. Albany was the coldest and wettest place we stayed, summer has not yet arrived! So why did we come here? Albany was recommended as a nice place to visit with lovely beaches and ancient forests. Sadly, it was too wet and windy to walk on the beach so we spent a lot of time at the gym and squeezed in a little sightseeing between the rain showers.
Albany is the oldest colonial settlement in Western Australia founded in 1826 as a military outpost. During the 19th century Albany served as the gateway to the eastern goldfields and for many years was the only deep water port in the area, until 1897 when the Fremantle inner harbor opened. During the second world war, the US Navy had an auxilliary submarine base here, in case the submarine base at Fremantle was lost. From 1952 to 1978 whaling was the major source of income and employment and after whaling operations were shut down, tourism, fishing, timber and agriculture became the main industries. The average annual rainfall here is 34 inches so its no surprise that we had a week of wet weather ☔
What do you do on rainy days? Visit a museum! The Museum of the Great Southern has a wide variety of displays showcasing the history of the area, we were very impressed with this small museum.
We did partake in one wine tasting during the week at Alkoomi Wines, they have a tasting room right in the city, conveniently right beside the Museum of the Great Southern. We were able to try 2 wines each at no cost to decide which ones we wanted to buy.
We braved the weather one day and drove 90 minutes west to the Walpole-Nornalup National Park. Our first stop inside the park was Hilltop Lookout where we had fabulous views over the karri forest, the Nornalup Inlet and the great expanse of the Southern Ocean. From this location there are a number of hiking and bike trails going up and down the mountain.
Our next stop was the Giant Tingle Tree walk, an 800m circular path through the forest. You may be wondering what on earth is a Tingle Tree? They are magnificent, giant eucalypts that are endemic to a small, 6000 hectare area in the southwest of Western Australia, primarily in the Walpole-Nornalup National Park. The most famous and largest species is the Red Tingle, having one of the largest base circumferences of any living eucalypt in the world. They often develop huge, flared, buttressed bases which can be over 24 meters/79 feet in circumference. They are also among the tallest trees in Western Australia commonly reaching heights of 30 to over 50 meters (100 to 170 feet). Many of the ancient Red Tingles have a unique feature where their massive trunks have been hollowed out by fire, fungi and insects over the centuries. Their resilience allows them to stand, supported by the outer wood, often creating large hollows at the base. Red Tingles are long-lived with some of them estimated to be over 400 years old. The giant tingle we visited is 22.3 meters in girth, you can hardly see Blair in the photo where he is standing at the base.
Another place to see these giant trees is the Valley of the Giants attraction where there is a paid tree top walk, or a free ground level ancient empire walk, which winds past not only Red Tingle trees but the smaller Yellow Tingle and Rate’s Tingle. Our weather was quite iffy so we chose to stay on the ground and enjoy a beautiful forest walk. On that weather note, Red tingles need over a meter of rain every year to thrive so that gives you an indication how wet it is around here. As you start along the boardwalk one of the first trees you come across is ‘Grandma Tingle’ a tree 12 meters in circumference, 38 meters high and estimated to be over 400 years old.
Circular Pool derives its name not from the shape of the pool, but by the currents of the pool flowing in circles, creating moving circular patterns with the foam that is created by the falls. The falls create a cappuccino colored foam, for which Circular Pool is famous, as a result of saponin from the eucalypt leaves breaking down in the water. While we were walking around Circular Pool a gentleman asked if we knew about the area. We replied no and he said that it rains here 10 months of the year and the other 2 it drips ☔ Hilarious, and rather appropriate since we were dodging rain showers all day.
Leaving Circular Pool our last stop of the day was Elephant Rocks and Greens Pool, but it was raining so we did not want to be outside for very long. We dashed down the walkway for a quick peek at Greens Pool before calling it a day and heading back to Albany. Considering the weather we did pretty good staying dry until our very last stop.
Just 20 minutes outside Albany in Torndirrup National Park is a lovely walk along the cliffs to the Blowholes. The Blowholes are cracks in some very smooth rocks which drop straight down into the ocean, so you don’t want to get too close to the edge. At high tide water will explode upwards out of the cracks but we unfortunately timed our visit at low tide so we got a little spray and a very loud whoosh each time a wave came in. Still impressive even at low tide.
The Albany Wind Farm, standing high on the coast, is a local tourist attraction. The farm consists of 12 giant wind turbines, generating around 75% of the clean, green electricity for Albany. Standing beneath one of the turbines we were dwarfed by the massive size. Did you know the tips of turbine blades can reach 240-290 km per hour!! There are a couple of walking trails to the cliffs and then higher up on the hill rewarding us with sweeping views across Torbay to West Cape Howe National Park and the city of Albany to the east.
Seadragons are found exclusively in the coastal waters of southern and western Australia. In 2015 a new species of seadragon, the Ruby Seadragon, was discovered off the coast of Western Australia. As part of the Public Silo Trail of Western Australia a whimsical Ruby Seadragon was painted on the silos at the Albany Port in 2018. It’s a wonderful piece of art and reminded us how incredibly lucky we were to have found a Leafy Seadragon during a shore dive we did near Adelaide in 2020.
Leaving Albany it was just over 5 hours drive to Fremantle. We decided to return to Fremantle because it was familiar and we had 6 hours to kill before returning the car in Perth at 10pm. We had a chance to wander around, grab a drink near the harbor and go to Char Char Grill for dinner before making our way to the car rental office. Taking an Uber we arrived at the airport much too early to check in so we found spot to have a coffee and wait until the check in counter opened. Once all that was done we made our way to the business class lounge where we sat around until our 2:30am flight.
Our next destination, Kuala Lumpur where we look forward to spending 7 weeks in the company of friends and celebrating the holiday season…..
TRIP TIPS
We joined Anytime Fitness for the week at a cost of $50 AUD (USD $ ) each