Albany caravan park and we’re cold here now with clouds, rain and wind predicted for the rest of our stay here. In the meantime here is a shot of sunrise over Middleton Beach.

Even more photos of Hell Fire Beach. Something about this beach really grabbed me.

We’ve just been bumming around Albany for the last few days, dodging the pockets of rain and wind and it’s been OK. Quiet lunches here and there, window shopping, so pretty boring really. Albany is a nice town but a little big for my liking. We’ve had a bandicoot sniffing around under our van for the last few nights, I’ll try to get a photo of him if he comes back. For my overseas readers a bandicoot is like a large rat but in a cute way. They are marsupials (they have pouches) and eat vegetation and insects. They are one of the few Australian animals that won’t poison you or tear you to shreds.

Today we drove to Denmark (the town not the country… derrr), which is a ‘trendy’ little place that seems inhabited by hippies. Lots of ‘wellness’ and ‘healing’ shops. The whole place stinks of incense and stuff secreted from llamas. You can buy any amount of various wind chimes, rainbow flags, shawls or jams made out of paspalum weeds.

I did make a visit to one of the local pie shops that proudly advertised itself as ‘award winning’ and they weren’t kidding. I counted 164 plaques, silver goblets and plates adorning the walls along with a comprehensive list of all of their achievements at the Perth Easter Shows, including ‘Australia’s Best Pie’! Now there’s a challenge. The thing is, the latest award was dated 2018/19 so what has happened after that? When I walked in it looked like the staff was made up from past members of the Pakistani Cricket Team, so there’s a clue.

My Pie Rating? Beef and Mushy Pea Pie… 3.6 out of a possible 5. Edible but no show winner. If you’d like my opinion of the Best Pie In The World, let alone Australia (and I’m probably over-qualified to judge) then just ask me.

This bloke must have found a lot of orange paint for cheap I’d say. Even his canvas roof sides are painted orange.

One thing that has puzzled me here is the highway signs proclaiming the police are now targeting FATIGUE. How do they do that? I can understand if they pull you over and you’re dressed in your pyjamas with your Teddy Bear tucked under your arm then that might be a give away but would that stand up in court? Can they make you yawn into a breathalyser, or maybe see how many sheep you can count to?

We drove to a few of the natural coastal features around here today, a stone bridge, The Gap and the blowholes. The track to the blowholes was steep and long, downhill so I was dreading the return walk. Once we got to where the blowholes was there was a sign saying ‘The Blowholes 33 metres’ with an arrow pointing to the cliff face which looked like it was 32 metres away .It was just daring us to commit suicide I’m sure. I took one look at the sign and started the loooong trudge back up the hill.

Black Boys are everywhere on W.A.‘s south coast. The bush is thick with them. You’d pay a fortune for these at East Coast nurseries.

Middleton Beach, Albany. More rain on the way.

Lots of Black cockatoos squawking their heads off here.

Secluded beach near Cheynes Beach. 4WD needed to negotiate the sandy track to here.

Cheyenne’s Beach (pron. Chains), a tiny town near Albany. Their main claim to fame is that they haven’t had a shark fatality in the last 10 years.

A very, very wet Leeuwin Lighthouse. There is a family significance about this lighthouse, remotely.

This is the view from one of the thick windows of that lighthouse. 200 nautical miles in that direction (WSW) on 25th December 1905 one of my Great Grandfathers Even Evansen and all but one of his crewmates sank onboard the Coimbatore, after a collision with the Zanita. Official reports say that he wasn’t the captain at that time although I have other information that he was, probably not. Thick fog and heavy seas, it must have been terrifying.

The Australian Ringneck or ‘28’. It is named because its call sounds like the number 28 in French (vingt huit - vung tweet) which it really doesn’t. It doesn’t sound anything remotely French and where would they get that from?

Some poor lambs trying to get out of the rain next to Mum.

A very poor shot of an Australian Shelduck in bad light and shaky hands. You’ll just have to take my word on it that when in full plumage and sunlight this bird is spectacular. I’ll do my best to get another photo but I’ve been waiting 9 years to get this one, how disappointing.

It’s still bucketing down here in Margaret River with a full thunderstorm happening, and we’re off to Perth today. Packing up the van will be a matter of dodging the rain and sloshing around before the next deluge.