The long way round ! 2010-11

Out of Albany into the wheat fields as far as you can see, wheat harvest time a harvester at work the end of the row Hopetoun a very small place by the sea just a few houses. It is cold and windy, nobody to be seen Five Mile beach Flowers brighten the dull day There is a flower we have not seen before Mullet Bay on the dirt road east on the road into Mason bay lots of flowers big Banksia flowers just opening Mason Bay shallow waters deep blue colour the evening mood there are some breaks in the cloud on sunset get the drift tucked under the trees out of the wind free camping at its best the inside of the caravan Starvation bay

a one night park up  the beach not bad the panorama just outside the caravan park from the top of the hill looking into Albany The Desert Mounted Corps   ANZAC war memorial on Mt.Clarence recovered and restored after the Suez crisis and rebuilt here the last place many of the ANZAC's  have seen before going into WW1 the panorama from the top of the hill Albany is the oldest settlements in Western Australia It has a lot of old buildings still standing quite unusual for Australia. this makes it a very pretty town. then there is the replica of  the Amity us old sailors have a thing for tall ships a lot of the running rigging needed to sail a vessel is not present it looks pretty frenchman bay the whaling station there is the "Perth"out there somewhere a diving rwreck one of the last Australien whaleboats high and dry  in the Whaleworld museum the Salmon Hole near the gap the natural bridge Sharp point

we are heading deep into the grain belt the mountains of the Stirling range appear they look pretty high there is today's challenge 6km in distance in total about 700m climb up and then back again 3 hours return trip this is Bluff Knoll and there goes the path up the front of it along the way we see lots of wildflowers beautiful views  plenty of delicate small flowers some quite large bushes in bloom and the view from the top we walked up from that carpark the rewarding panorama fields of wildflowers at the top right at the peak this gem one fully open the whole plant and another panorama Lorraine on top of the world more flowers and lots of these lizzards then back to the camp at  Moingup Springs evening drink time for the parrots