Familiar territory

16-17 January 2013 ??

It felt weird to travel into Albany as we were entering, for the first time in a long time, countryside we’d traversed before.  In 2008 we spent a week in Albany and loved it. We wondered if it was just as we had remembered, or if the memory of the amazing beaches at Esperance would change our minds.

The country 40km north of Albany felt strangely familiar, and I had a strange sense of longing and nostalgia. For some reason it reminds me of Athlone in the summer and I just love it (both Athlone and this countryside).

The town itself, in peak tourist season, was buzzing and alive and has a great energy about it. Guess how much a powered site at one of the caravan parks on the beach was?  $90/night!!  We found a cheaper place about 10kms from town and it was idyllic with a site right on the river, on a patch of our first bit of green grass in ages and we loved it.

The salt and pepper squid at the Squid Shack was as good as we remembered it, the ocean pool at Emu Point was alive with hundreds of kids and King George Sound was still amazing. We took the kids to Whale World and had a whale of a time.  Who would’ve thought that a tour of a grizzly, gory whaling station could be so captivating and engaging. The turnaround from hunting whales to whale-based tourism is amazing.  The highlight was being able to walk all around and up and down every ladder of the old whaling boat Cheyne IV.