Windmills

There's no photographic evidence, but we also enjoyed a few bike rides, climbing on cannons and around bunkers at the National Anzac Centre, and even a sort of pleasant day building sandcastles and trying to brave the icy waters at the beach!

Before leaving Albany, we made sure to visit their amazing Wind Farm. These things are ah-maz-ing!! Would you believe that from the tip of the blade at its highest point to the ground measures over 100 metres?!?! These 18 windmills provide 80% of Albany's electrical needs. I think Perth needs to take a few notes. Lord knows that the winds around our place on hot summer mornings could light up the city all year!

The Porongurups

When the weather the next day proved to be less than beach worthy, we ventured north to the Porongurups and a hike up to the Granite Skywalk on the top of Castle Rock. The walk up was steep but lots of fun, and the views at the top were awesome. Grumpy sensibly decided not to venture up the last 50 or so metres of rock scrambling, crevasse squeezing, and scary ladder climbing to the Granite Skywalk and the icy wind that met us there. It was worth the effort, but none of us needed to stay up there for long!

When we made it down again, we had a fancy lunch at one of the regional wineries (and some of us did some wine tasting), and then headed to another highlight of the Porongurups: The Tree-in-the-Rock, which was pretty much a tree growing out of a rock. Cool? Sure. But maybe not worth the trip all on its own.

Big Waves and Whaling Stations

Our first full day in Albany was a busy one. After a shopping trip to buy sleeping gear for the kids and warmer clothes for all of us, we braved sideways rain and icy winds to marvel at some of Albany's most famous natural wonders: The Gap (which made our bottoms clench as we looked down into the menacingly powerful waves crashing dozens of metres below us), the Natural Bridge (less frightening, but still pucker-worthy), and the Blowholes (which despite the stormy weather didn't impress us much with their blow power, but the walk back up all those stairs sure was invigorating!)

The weather fined up a bit for our tour at Albany's Historic Whaling Station, the last one of it's kind to cease operation in Australia. What's so interesting about this place is that in 1978 the place pretty much just shut its doors. And now, it's open almost exactly as it was nearly 40 years ago so that tourists can learn all about this gruesome industry that employed so many in this part of the world and continues to be a thriving industry still to this day in a handful of countries.

The boys loved climbing all around the whaling ship: trying out the bunks, steering the ship, and aiming the harpoon. Paul and Grumpy liked learning about the operations and mechanical stuff, and I just liked hearing how whale numbers have continued to increase in the decades since most nations of the world realised the impact they were having on these amazing creatures.

Albany beach holiday

Just after xmas, Mom and Dad organised for us all to go down to Albany for a beach holiday. It really wasn't their fault that the weather absolutely did not cooperate with our beach holiday, but you'd think that they might have remembered El and my sleeping bags.

That first night was awfully funny with all four of us crammed together on Mom and Dad's side of the tent trying to share their blanket and a quilt we borrowed from Grumpy's room. Elliot and I thought it was good fun to snuggle up together, but Mom and Dad mentioned something about elbows in faces and were dead keen to hit the shops the next morning to get us some new sleeping bags (and extra clothes to cope with the winter-like weather). 

Here's a few pics of yours truly when the weather was behaving. ~ Ollie

Playground of Danger

Before we got to Albany, we decided to take a detour to the famous Katanning playground, aka the All-Ages Playground. I like to call it the Playground of Danger, and despite the peril, it was a lot of fun.

Christmas Night

. . . and showing off our circus skills!

Christmas

Christmas morning the boys had a blast driving around the awesome remote control monster trucks that Santa brought them and trying out their new scooters from Grumpy.

But in the afternoon, the rest of the family came over and the real fun got started. There were more presents to be unwrapped and swimming and charades and photo shoots . . .