Up and Down and Back Again

7th/8th December 2009

We managed to survive the night in Albany in our not so fragrant accommodation and woke up to skies that were still quite overcast but at least didn't have rain pouring out of them. After a very grumpy conversation with Zanna (which was completely understandable when you accept the fact that she'd been unable to have coffee as there wasn't even a coffee plunger at the place!) we all made an executive decision that we would cut our time in Albany short and return back to Perth that day, rather than stay another night. We'd always planned for Albany to be a beach day, but even as hardcore English girls we couldn't find the weather hot enough to make that happen.

Before we left we thought we'd check out the Blow Holes, another natural phenomenon along the coastal road that had absolutely no safety precautions attached to it. It was quite a pleasant walk along the cliff path and you could tell that when the sun comes out in the area then the beaches would have looked amazingly as they were all made up of white sand and turquoise water. But sadly, in the spirit of the last 24 hours, when we got to the blow holes, conditions weren't actually horrible enough to make them 'blow' and as I didn't think it was worth while practically falling off a cliff to see them we gave up.

MZ once again showing a blatant disregard for life and limb!

Our other main point of interest before we returned to Perth was the Whale World Museum, as Albany is famous for its whaling history. However we got there and checked it out and decided that we weren't hugely interested in learning how they used to boil the blubber off the whales and cut them up for meat, so we headed back to the freeway. On our way we saw the following sign which kind of summed up our mood!!

As we headed North, the weather gradually got sunnier and hotter, the skies cleared and our moods improved considerably! The drive home made us wonder though how anyone lived in some of these places (we would see a place signposted and think it was quite a main village, only to drive through it and realise it consisted of a petrol station and a general store!) But we were able to finally get some decent coffee and cake and made it back to civilisation.

This was great because getting back early allowed us to go on the ministry (just like London, lots of intercoms and not at homes!) to the meeting (a whole local needs on Swine flu and the importance of using hand sanitiser if you shake the hand of someone you don't want to!!) and to Cottesloe Beach.... plus to wake up bright and early for our dolphin experience.... xx