A late arrival in Albany saw us book into a quiet little caravan park at the edge of town. The next morning we parked at Middleton Beach (the main town beach) and unloaded the folding bikes for a day of discovery. The headland boardwalk/bike trail affords great views of the harbour and ports before dropping you into the town centre. The memorial to Ataturk (below) and occasional old gun mounts reminded the visitor of Albany’s military history. Our Gallipoli troops and horses all departed from here!

The place was buzzing with pre-ANZAC Day preparations – including trying to extinguish the fire on Mount Clarence which threatened to cancel the celebrations after the town spent over $5M on upgrading the ANZAC Memorial & facilities on the hilltop and the adjacent historic Princess Royal Fortress. The whole day saw arial water bombing and the site was closed to visitors. Apart form the amazing history of Albany, it is a popular and trendy tourist destination with great parks and shops.

Apparently no visit to Albany is complete without seeing “Dog Rock” near town centre!  Wonder how it got its name?

We bravely cycled several kilometres up steep hills to the Old Fort and rewarded ourselves with a devonshire tea before witnessing the firing of an original (1874) muzzle load, 9 pound cannon. It was quite a ceremony with retired military chaps in WW1 gear & pith helmets loading black powder charges with ram rods before lighting the fuse and thrilling the crowd with an enormous blast & cloud of smoke.

We arrived back at our car and headed west for adventures unknown.

Although the day was late we managed to call into an amazing bush food factory run by a French family where we bought some goodies and then also stumbled upon a superb “Wood Works” gallery where a great cheese/bread platter was purchased and squirrelled into our packed car. A quick detour into the state forest for a campsite where the silence was so complete it was almost unsettling.

We arrived in Denmark just before the  mid-morning ANZAC services. Denmark has very trendy coffee shops and a great visitors centre with amenities. After grabbing (good) coffee & local knowledge we visited the famous Green Pool & Elephant rocks in Williams Bay.

Then it was into the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk which climbs to 45 metres along steel spans that bring you almost level with the canopy of a 400 year old Tingle Forest (unique to the Walpole area). It takes a while to get used to how much the steel spans sway and move up and down due to the foot traffic! This was one of Ginnie’s highlights so far.

The spans are VERY high and sway A LOT… it was a great experience!

Last stop was at Conspicuous Cliffs where we noticed from the lookout that people on the beach were hauling big salmon out of the surf. Without delay Markus was headed to the beach with rod in hand. Thanks to the help of a bloke on the beach the right tackle set up was soon in place and the first Salmon of the holiday was wrestled onto the beach after a great fight between man and beast! Somewhere between 3 & 4 kgs – this was one of Markus’ highlight so far! A late stop in the edge of Walpole National Park saw us enjoying fresh Salmon steaks for dinner… awesome!

The next morning we drove a little deeper into the park to the Hilltop Giant Tingle Tree. After a quick top up of fuel and supplies in Walpole and we were off to explore the D’Entrecasteaux National Park which covers the south west corner of WA. A visit to the beautiful Mandalay Beach (named after the ship that was wrecked there in 1911) and then 3 kms of very sandy track to Banksia Camp Site a hundred metres from rocky outcrops and a dazzling private beach. We didn’t catch any fish here but did get a great sunset.