To Albany

It’s only something like 120km from Walpole to Albany but it took us a week to travel that distance.  There is just SO much to see around this area, more than we’d realised and not the sort of thing we wanted to rush.  We’ve tried to stay off the highways as much as possible and explore the coast roads and 4WD tracks, which have given us access to some wonderful beaches.  The weather’s been a bit cool since leaving Fremantle, not beach weather by any means, but we’ve enjoyed it all.  Often we’ve sat in a shelter or sometimes in the car out of the wind at lookouts, fascinated by the swell of the Southern Ocean and pounding of the waves onto rocks.

"Conspicuous Cliff" 

Not far from Walpole is the famous Tree Top Walk through the karri and tingle forest.  Having seen so many of these trees recently from the ground, it was great to see them from 40metres up and look down to their bases.  They can grow up to 75m so a lot of the canopies were still high above us.  Then we did the ‘ground walk’ for another look at the red tingles.  Most of these have a huge girth and hollow bases you can walk into.

We then headed for the coast again, to William Bay National Park west of Denmark.  This is one of the most fantastic coastal areas we’ve seen – crystal clear water, incredible rocks, even a bay where the water comes in from either side and meets in the middle.  Meantime the Southern Ocean’s crashing in from the south.  It’s called Madfish Bay and we wonder whether the name reflects the state of the fish who probably don’t know in which direction to swim! Elephant Rocks was a fantastic place. If we ever get back to the west we want to spend more time down here.

Elephant Rocks

Madfish Bay

Madfish Bay

Denmark’s a nice little town on an inlet close to the ocean.  We drove up to Mt Shadforth from where you get a good perspective of the area.  There’s quite a bit of history here (mainly timber milling) and we also checked out some of the local artwork at the gallery.

No, we didn't camp in Denmark.   

Our bush camp at Cosy Corner

... and the beach at Cosy Corner, not far from Denmark

We explored the West Cape Howe NP next day, camping right by the beach at the aptly named Cosy Corner.  What a gorgeous beach this was, especially when the sun came out and turned the ocean blue!  There are some nice beaches in this park, as well as forest and some walking tracks - Torbay Head, which you can’t easily get to, is the most southerly point in WA.

West Cape Howe NP - the best of the bush ....

... and the beach

Our next destination was Albany, the first permanent settlement in WA and a city which boasts one of the most spectacular locations - right on the shore of King George Sound.  The area is peninsulas, bays, islands and of course miles of white sandy coastline.

A taste of Albany, with the old whaling station in the foreground