albany

Framed by the rugged Porongurup National Park and Stirling Ranges, the port city of Albany was Western Australia’s first European settlement. Currently, it has a population of about 30,000 people. (wildlife not included), with a good mix of old, colonial style buildings and new contemporary designed ones. We had a quick toilet break before heading to The Gap and The Bridge – a must see for all visitors to Albany. Yea, I was there 9 years back too :)

‘The Gap’ is where the ocean rushes into a large cavern in the rocks. I remember when I first there 9 years ago, I was in awe of nature. Her prowess and might of the waves crashing against the rocks truly humbled me. They still do.

Cheea-pose


Yea I was a stupid cow – wearing slip-ons on a cold wintry day! Brrr…ai swee bo ai mia (beauty at the expense of life)



Like a bridge over trouble waters.


My last thoughts as the bridge falls into its watery grave would be, “DAMMIT, I SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD THAT CHICKEN MAYO & CHEESE ROLL FOR LUNCH!”

Goodbye Gap! Goodbye Bridge! See you in...9 years time?

We headed down to the wind farm, which was just a short drive away.

There are 12 turbines, each with a rated maximum output of 1800kW in the wind farm. This contributes up to 75% of Albany’s power needs. The cost of this project? A cool $44 million.

The setting sun can only signal one thing – DINNER TIME! After checking into our hotel (Gawd, it is an insult to hotels, never ever judge a hotel by its exterior), we asked around for the best fish and chips in town. The kind folks of Primier “kanasai” Hotel recommended Rodella’s Fish and Chips which was “just around the corner”. Yea, round and around lor…

It tastes better than it looks! But not "chip" wor...(pun totally intended)

It’s so old, I half expected women dressed in Victorian age clothes to walk along the corridor. It was a communal bathroom can?! No guys of course, thank goodness. There was only 2 units for shower. One was a standing type and the other was the bathtub, which did not have a shower head – I discovered too late :/ so you can imagine la, squatting there in the gawd-knows-how-old tub with dead flies swimming around in the water (I tried to get rid of them, but difficult la), using my hands to scoop water. I was freezing my ass off man. Argh, what to expect when it was only A$35 a night…sigh. Premier my ass :P

Planning the route ahead.

Pastures and pastures passed us as we drove along the road and all we could see were black cows, or brown cows, no black or white ones! Until that moment. Haha we just had to stop and take some photos. Yea, we climbed over the gate. Subconsciously, I was waiting to hear the sound of a shotgun ringing through the air as we were taking photos.