In and Around Albany, Western Australia

Part 1

Friends told us in advance that we'd love Albany and they were right. Having Judith and Don's car has made a world of difference in our ability to get around and see what there is to see. Albany is a small port city (pop: ~34,000) located on the largest natural harbor in Western Australia. King George Sound, Oyster Harbour and Princess Royal Harbour join to form a huge expanse of protected waters. The red “X” marks the spot where Nine of Cups is moored.

We made our first trip into Albany with new friends, Don and Judith. They showed us the lay of the land, then we headed to Saturday's fresh market.

An interesting sight en route was Dog Rock, a huge granite boulder in the shape of a dog's head. There's even a collar painted around its neck. What was most interesting though, were the stories associated with the rock which has been probably been there for millennia. The Aborigine dreaming story of the rock goes like this. There were two snakes that lived on the islands (Breaksea and Michaelmas) near the entrance to the Sound. They lived on bird eggs on the island. One snake got very greedy and took eggs from the other snake's island. A terrible fight ensued … the snake fight causing lots of the features in the area's terrain still seen today. The local people (the Minang), tired of the aggravation caused by the snakes, built a snake trap, but it didn't work. So they threw a dog at the snakes. One of the snakes bit the dog in half … the dog's head, Dog Rock (Yacka), still remains. The snakes finally went away, but Oyster Harbour and the King and Kalgan Rivers were left in their wake.

Don and Judith also introduced us to the best coffee/cafe in town, Dylans, where we sampled friandes (a rectangular muffin of French origin) and Lumberman cake for the first time. After coffee, they headed off in one car and left us with another … and the exploring began in earnest.

As always one of our first stops is the Visitor's Info Center. Albany's is quite modern and large and had all sorts of good brochures and pamphlets on things to see and do. So many choices … so little time.

Albany is the oldest continuous European settlement in Western Australia, founded in 1826, two years before Fremantle or Perth. A British military outpost was set up here to discourage the French from making any claims. The brig Amity sailed from Sydney on 9th November 1826, carrying a party under the command of Major Edmund Lockyer, who had orders to form a settlement at King George Sound. A replica of the Amity built in 1975 and refurbished recently sits behind the museum beside a small pond with beautiful views of Princess Royal Harbour.

Speaking of the museum, the Albany Western Australian Museum was quite a pleasant surprise. Several buildings house different aspects of the area's history from Aborigines to first European settlers to modern times. A special exhibition entitled Debt of Honor was especially well done and featured the role of the Timorese people and the help they provided a small band of Aussie commandos who fought a guerilla campaign on the island against the Japanese in 1942. The admission was a “gold coin donation”,i.e. a $2 coin.

Between Emu Point, where we're moored, and Albany is a particularly beautiful stretch of coastline called Middleton Beach. A boardwalk along the hillside at Ellen Cove provides wonderful overlooks into the bay below.

We walked along the beach, but opted not to swim because of the posted signs! Evidently the carcass of a young whale washed ashore catching the attention of the local great whites. This did not, however, stop lots of other people from swimming and surfing.

Check back for further exploration around and about Albany tomorrow.

Happy Easter to those on the other side of the dateline and Happy Spring to everyone above the Equator!

Emu Point

Our New Neighborhood

Checking out the new neighborhood is always foremost on the list when we arrive anywhere. Emu Point is located on the western side of a deep channel linking Oyster Harbour with the King George Sound. As it turns out, the city of Albany, is ~7km (4 miles) away. There always seems to be lots of activity ashore. We're keen to find out what's available there and what's not.

Emu Point seems to be a popular family kind of place. Lots of kids are usually running around at the playground. There are several picnic tables, a lovely beach with protected waters and an offshore pontoon (raft) to swim to. There's also the Emu Point Cafe on the point that looks like it'd be a good place to get a flat white (like a latte) and watch the world go by. I watched local guys cleaning their fish in a convenient, covered fish-cleaning pavilion. They obviously had a good day.

The Squid Shack is the local fish'n'chips joint and it seems to do a pretty good business. We're told the portions are huge and the food is good.

The marina and boat harbor seem quite compact although their website states they can handle boats to 20m (65'). There's a slipway and haul-out facility (40 tons) which would be pretty convenient if we needed a haul-out at the moment. Several little boat-related shops line the foreshore. This is also the debarkation point for the Kalgan Queen, a small, glass-bottomed tour boat that, among other things, takes tourists up the Kalgan River on a 4-hour trip. It seems to be quite the crowd-pleaser judging from the folks queued up to leave the other morning. According to Trip Advisor, it's the #1 activity to do in Albany. However … getting on a boat just isn't our idea of fun … if you know what I mean.

I love watching the Australian pelicans in residence here. They're quite the showmen and they're everywhere. As a matter of fact, they breed at the tiny Green Island Nature Reserve in the middle of Oyster Harbour, not far from where Nine of Cups is moored. We've also seen lots of cormorants, terns, gulls and, believe it or not, even an osprey.

A bronze statue of Sam the Seal caught my attention because there was a Sammy the Seal in Esperance. I wondered if they were related. This Sam, we're told, was a friendly old New Zealand fur seal, that was senselessly and brutally killed back in 2006 by an unknown assailant. He was so loved by the locals, they took up a collection to erect this statue to his memory.

I'm not sure if we'll get to see one, but it appears there are bandicoots in the area … another one of those odd, Australian marsupials that we Americans have never heard of.

We have yet to cross the bay which borders Mt Martin Botanical Reserve and Gull Rock National Park, both of which are accessed from the shore and offer miles and miles of walking tracks. It's on the agenda.

A New 30 Day Rule - Albany, WA

Sometimes I have to pinch myself and ask how come we're able to do what we're doing and end up being so lucky. Our 90-day rule? Well, things have escalated. It's more like a 30-day rule recently. The cruising/sailing community is so tight-knit, so supportive and so generous, it's overwhelming. So, here's our latest scenario. We had several contacts in Albany … mostly friends of friends ... and we sent e-mails in advance to let folks know we would be arriving soon in hopes we'd have a chance to meet new friends and visit with some old ones. Maree, whom we met when she and her family were volunteer caretakers at Deal Island, lives ~ 70 miles (120km) from Albany and she put us in touch with a very experienced sailor here, Mark, who gave us advance anchoring/mooring and general info about the area and allowed us to use his address to receive some parts we needed. He came for tea the other morning and delivered the parts to the boat and we'll probably see him again later in the week. Maree has now invited us to stay at her home and show us around the area.

Apart from Maree, our good friend, David V. from the outskirts of Melbourne who's been following our blog for years, put us in touch with friends of his who live here in Albany. We contacted Don and Judith (previously of Aurora III) to say hello. They proceeded to meet up with us, take us to the fresh market in Albany, then to coffee and left us with their car … for a week! We also have an invitation to stay in their guest room if we'd like, take showers at their home and we're having dinner with them at their home one evening. This is over the top, don't you think?

They also suggested we try to meet Darren who runs the Emu Point Slipway and is a shipwright by trade. He wasn't around when we called in, but they had already made arrangements to park their car in the boatyard next to his shop every night. When we returned at the end of the day, he was there and we stopped in to introduce ourselves. He was welcoming, reiterated that it was fine to park the car where it was and offered us a few days of free dockage near the slipway to make provisioning and fueling easier.

Remember how lucky we were meeting Del and Mark and Sue and the Mackenzies in Esperance? Remember those cruisers we met in Streaky Bay? We're still in touch with them. In particular, Eva and Brian on Zofia have given us contacts for nearly every port we'll be visiting in the next month or two. Pauline and Denys have just put us in touch with their good friends in Perth.

Either the 90-day rule is becoming a monthly occurrence OR we're getting ahead on hospitality to make up for the upcoming Indian Ocean crossing when we'll go for weeks without meeting anyone at all. We've really got to be intent on paying it back because we've been getting a lot of pay it forwards from others. We're pretty lucky sailors. Life is good.

BTW, Happy Easter to our friends down under. The Easter bunny, I mean bilby, always gets here early!