Finishing up in Albany

After two and a half months in Albany we are finally about to hit the road again. We have enjoyed our time here, particularly the experience of being part of a golf club again, but the weather hasn't been as summery as we would have liked, and we are heartily sick of the never-ending wind. Since our last post we've done a couple more walks, including Mt Hassell in the Stirling Ranges and Possession Point, quite close to town. The photo at left shows the view down from near the top of Mt Hassell, if you zoom a long way you might spot John waving from a flat spot in about the middle of the photo, and the car way down the bottom in the car park in the middle left. Although it was only supposed to be 3 km return the extremely steep slope made it feel an awful lot longer, the trip down was almost as difficult as the climb up, as the path was covered in loose scree and at one stage Wendy's feet came out from under her and she landed hard on her backside.

Wendy did the Possession Point walk with her Mum when we were in Albany previously, but it is a lovely walk and only about 20km from town, so we decided to do it together. Unfortunately we were unaware how high the tides come, and where last year we walked along a lovely sandy beach, this time we had to wade through the water to get back to the car, avoiding the bluebottle jelly fish that were everywhere on the sand. The photo at left shows barnacle encrusted floats that had washed up onto the beach.

Last weekend John made a lightning visit to Sydney for his granddaughter's baptism and his daughter's 30th birthday party. He had a lovely time catching up with his family. Wendy meanwhile decided to do the last remaining walk in the Porongorups, about 50km north of Albany. The walk description included the note that you needed a good head for heights, which rather lets John out. When she got to the trail head she found a track closed sign, from 1 March 2010 to 'until further notice'. Apparently the track reopened yesterday, so she missed out by less than a week. Wendy also played in the Albany Classic golf tournament over the weekend, blowing a one shot lead after a good first round with a terrible second round on Sunday to finish runner up. Another trophy to tuck away somewhere in the van.....

The consistent play on the same golf course has done wonders for our handicaps - Wendy has dropped from 12 to 6 while we have been here, and John from 12 to 8. Now that we'll be on the move again and playing at different courses every week our handicaps are likely to reverse direction and start heading back up again!