Finally Leaving Albany

We extended our stay in Albany by an extra week, but after just over a month here we are finally on the move again. The reason for the extension was so that we could get the TV fixed, however as at the evening before we are due to leave we still don't have it back. However, the part has finally been sent from Melbourne (over a week after the manufacturer promised) and we are tracking it on the courier company website. We are hopeful (perhaps foolishly, given the history with this tv) that it will arrive in Albany tomorrow morning, and we will be able to pick up the fixed tv pretty quickly after that (how long can it take to replace a board?) and be on the road again. We've enjoyed our time in Albany, but we're starting to get itchy feet after our longest stop since spending 2 months in Darwin.

The extension of our stay here had a side benefit, as over Christmas our fridge suddenly decided not to work any more. In common with most caravan refrigerators it is a '3-way' model - able to be run on 240v (or AC, mains power from the caravan park), 12v (battery power from the caravan battery, or the car battery when towing) or gas. Experimentation showed that it was working in all except AC mode, so we switched it over to gas until we could figure out how to fix it. After spirited discussion on a caravanning website forum, we decided the most likely cause was a failed element, so we got out the instructions to try and figure out how to replace the element. The bad news was that it was too tricky for people with too many thumbs like us to tackle, the good news is that we realised that the fridge was still under warranty. Once workshops opened again in the New Year we were able to take the van off to the local refrigeration mechanic and get a new element installed, under warranty, so we would have had to extend our stay here anyway, even without the tv problem.

We've taken advantage of our extra time here to tackle a couple more walks in a local national park. The first was a very tough walk up Bluff Knoll, 3.1 km straight up (then 3.1 km down again). The first photo at left shows the view up to the top from part way up the walk, the second shows the view back down to the car park from the top of the knoll. It was much tougher than we had expected, and our legs were stiff for several days afterwards. Mind you, the 6 year old in her party dress who was skipping down from the summit as we got near the top made us feel that perhaps we weren't as fit as we had thought!

The other walk we did was up Mt Trio, not as long as the Bluff Knoll walk but still quite demanding. At least there were no 6 year olds to put us to shame - we were the only people to do this particular walk, which was made obvious by the unbroken spider webs as we pushed up the narrow track through the overgrown bush. These last 2 photos show the view from Mt Trio across to Bluff Knoll (if you expand the photo very large you can see how far below the peak the car park is) and the end of the track up Mt Trio. We didn't have to be told twice - beyond this point the sides of the mountain become a sheer drop.

Of course, the main thing we've done in Albany is play golf. We've both played 3 times each week here (except while Wendy's mum was visiting), with men's day on Wednesday and ladies' day on Thursday, plus a comp on Saturday and Sunday. We've certainly honed our skills with the practice, with a couple of competition wins plus several ntp's and balls down the line between us. The locals have been very welcoming, and the course was a good test. Mind you, we haven't seen it at its toughest, it runs beside the beach and in winter the sea breeze can apparently make it almost impossible even to walk upwind, let alone hit a golf ball. We've had only gentle zephyrs in comparison!