(There will be a second Albany trip in February when Stephen is singing in a concert in Albany with the WASO chorus.)
Thursday 9th January, 2025
We drove to Williams, taking the York/Williams Road. Our original plan was to go to Highbury for a free overnight, but it was really too hot for free camping. I remembered a photo I have of staying at the Williams Caravan Park, which looked quite pleasant, with shady trees. So, we ended up with shade and power. We used the air conditioning for a couple of hours until about 6.15 p.m. when it became much cooler. We wandered over to a little park with sculptures of Australian animals. We were taking videos on the Osmo Pocket 3, but I’ve managed to accidentally delete them. Stephen took some videos and photos, which are now our only record. There were a couple of llamas at the caravan park, I’m very sorry to have lost the footage as they are very cute indeed. Perhaps we will go back to the Williams Caravan Park to see them. I didn’t take a photo of our camping spot to compare with the photo we have from June, 2016. We chatted with fellow campers Richard and Shiela, who are from the UK.
Friday 10th January, 2025
We had a peaceful night, with a cool breeze that made sleeping very comfortable. It was sunny in the morning and we hadn’t allowed for the morning sun when deciding on shade. It was fairly cool up until 10.00 a.m. when we left.
It’s fairly exciting travelling on Albany Highway and we longed for the peaceful York-Williams Road. We stopped at Kojonup and went to one of the bakeries for hot drinks and a shared custard tart. Just as well as instead of driving directly to our overnight spot we took a detour via Yonkers Road for the views of the Stirling Ranges, then another detour through Cranbrook looking for a back road into Kendenup. We didn’t find it and went back to Albany Highway for about 20kms until our turnoff.
We selected an unpowered site, more for shade and privacy than saving money as there is only a $5 difference. It was only $32 per night at Williams, and here it is $20 for unpowered and $25 for powered. We have the same level of facilities, with toilets, showers and a place to wash dishes. And better views, looking through trees into farmland.
In the evening we went to the sports club for a meal. We were ready to go at about 6.10 p.m. and rang our local host to find out what time the kitchen closed. He said 6.30 to 6.45 p.m., so we did a very fast walk (1.2kms) to get there in time. Actually, there was plenty of time. They lost our initial order, so started our meal at just after 7.00 p.m. We chatted to some people coming in the driveway, but otherwise did not actually speak with people other than the staff. We had a couple of drinks, a cider, then a lemon soft drink.
We enjoyed the walk back as we could take our time enjoying the stars coming out and the last of the sunset.
Stephen had to get up for some Enos in the night and even I had a slight tummy problem. We had ordered two separate meals, but could probably have shared one.
Saturday 11th January, 2025
It’s quite exciting to type 2025, we are now a quarter through the new century! Today we’ve decided to stay another night here and Stephen arranged payment with our host. We are on an unpowered site, but have shower, toilet and washing up facilities. It rained lighting this morning, as predicted by the BOM, but the clouds have cleared and we have some sunshine. This morning we took our time over getting up, having breakfast, and having showers. Stephen emptied out some of the grey water and helped with shaking out the mats and I hoovered the floor. It’s very handy to have the little Ryobi hoover, which works using the same battery as our Ryobi fan.
This sounds industrious, but we’ve also spent time reading and listening to news and current affairs through our various apps.
I had us on the 50GB for $80 plan for our Starlink Mini, and this morning found we had already used 100GB. That just in a couple of days. The 50GB worked for our last trip and it seems a bit strange, but we have not been trying to save data, so it’s probably correct. Streaming video takes up a lot of data and I’ve been backing up photos and video as well. So, I’ve moved us onto the unlimited plan, paying an extra $100. The unlimited plan for a full month is $195. I will likely change back to the 50GB plan for our second Albany trip in February.
Stephen has out his sketch pad and is working on a star map. Last night he was looking at Mars as it appears to move towards Gemini. Later in the month it will appear to move away from Gemini due to our different orbits. It had been cloudy yesterday, but cleared up in the evening so that we had quite a good view of the stars.
We are going to Gilberts, a local winery, for lunch. It is too far to walk there and back, especially in the middle of the day in partial sun. That is part of the reason why we are staying the night, but perhaps also because we realise that I need rest days of not doing a lot of driving. We are about 80kms from Albany, so will go to Mt Barker for shopping and dumping, then out to one of the beach camping areas near Albany.
Sunday 12th January, 2025
We enjoyed our lunch at Gilberts. We discussed the winery with Harley, our waiter, who is a local from Kendenup, and also with the owner. Our meal was a cheese and cold meat board, very well done. Apparently they used to have a chef and do more of a conventional restaurant menu, but this doesn’t appear to be popular anymore. Anyway, it was a good atmosphere and we enjoyed the food very much.
Afterwards we drove around the Kendenup area locating the local attractions from a brochure. It was interesting, but we were tired when we got back and happy to settle in for the night. We had bought a bottle of wine so that we could have a small drink each at the winery and perhaps a bit more with our dinner. Which we did.
It was colder than our first night, with a little light rain in the early hours.
Today we packed up and went to Mt Barker to dump our toilet and do some shopping. I had bought some pumpkin when Matt was coming to tea, but hadn’t used it all up. I wanted to make a pumpkin soup for our evening meal, so we bought some additional ingredients, including dried soup mix, and onion, and some greens.
Our drive here to Cosy Corner was made interesting by Google Maps. It sent us on a route through farms and bushland on gravel roads. Even when we finally arrived at the road into Cosy Corner we were diverted again onto a gravel road due to the main road closure. It was after 12.00 when we arrived, so we probably shouldn’t have found a site, but we did, after driving past it initially, looking for something flatter. In the end we came back to it and snagged it just before some other campers came in looking for places. Whew! I paid our fees for two nights and we settled in and had lunch.
It was hot this afternoon and we had a choice of a calm, but hot interior, or a windy, but cool outside, sitting on our camping chairs. We opted for outside.
Around 5.00 p.m. we went for a walk along the beach, then came home to talk to Matt on FaceTime and cook our pumpkin soup. Stephen cut up all of the vegetables with a very inadequate knife. The soup took about 45minutes overall. I had soaked the soup beans so that they would cook more quickly. We still had some of the wine left, so enjoyed that with our meal.
We are watching the programme ‘Dr Karl’s How things are made’ on ABCIVIEW and it’s very interesting. We watched the one on toilet paper last night and the one on chocolate tonight.
The forecast is for some light rain tonight.
