Western Australia Travel Guide - Albany, Denmark, Wave Rock

Southern Region

Albany is a lovely harbour city nestled against the granite slopes of Mount Clarence and overlooking sheltered King George Sound. It is an ideal base for exploring the surrounding area. Albany was the site of the State’s first European settlement and there are many historic buildings.

Whaleworld, at Frenchman Bay, is Australia’s premier whaling museum, and looks back at times when whaling was a major industry off the coast. What makes it even more poignant is to see live whales breeching offshore and know that, these days, they’re safe from human predators – mostly. Surely it’s time to totally ban killing of whales, even if it is in the name of sushi, sorry, I meant scientific research.

Stirling Range and Porongurup National parks have magnificent views and bushwalks for all levels of fitness. In the wildflower season, flowers carpet the area.

Denmark is worth a visit to see the handiwork of craftspeople who take local materials and make them into works of art. Again, there is spectacular coastal scenery around here, as opposed to the other Denmark, which is pretty much devoid of any spectacular scenery.

The European country’s highest mountain is less than a tenth the height of Kosciuszko, but that’s another guidebook.

From Albany you can take the inland highway back to Perth. If you take the longer inland way, via Hyden, you can check out the famous Wave Rock. While I don’t want to discourage you from doing so, I was particularly under-whelmed by this natural wonder.

Yes, it looks like a wave rising some 15 metres from the brown earth, but it’s not a long wave and, frankly, looks better in the postcards. My reaction may also have been tainted though by a long drive to discover a carpet of beer and soft drink cans from the car park to the rock.

South of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, on the coast, is Esperance (also accessible from Albany). This is an area with striking coastal scenery, national parks, beautiful beaches and an array of unique plants and animals. On entering the town from the dry north, one word went through my mind: ‘oasis’.

The Archipelago of the Recherche is a necklace of more than 200 islands that can be explored by boat. Woody Island is particularly beautiful and the crystal clear waters are home to the largest accessible wreck dive in Australia, the Sanko Harvest. You can take the Great Ocean Drive to the Pink Lake, Twilight Cove and Cape le Grande National Park. All the national parks in the region have a carpet of wildflowers in season.

The town of Esperance itself is beautiful and overlooks the Bay of Isles. Kids will love riding the wild sand dunes.

To the north-west is the historic mining town of Ravensthorpe.

It has a pioneer museum, mining relics, and, again, abundant wildflowers. Just east are the sheer Baxter Cliffs of the Great Australian Bight.

This is a great region if all you want from a holiday is to ‘get away from it all’.

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