After leaving behind the rain and grey skies of Esperance yesterday we arrived in Albany in the afternoon to one of the nicest campsites we have been at yet. It's just behind the beach and has a recreation room with free pool and table-tennis, a free theatre room with loads of DVD's to choose from and even a heated spa! We may be here some time!!

This morning we set off with a kiwi couple that we met last night to take a look around the farmer's market in the centre of town to see if we could pick up some fresh produce and maybe even a bargain or two. However, there turned out to be much less to see than we had imagined and a change of plan was needed, so we set off to explore one of the many national parks in the area. Our first stop was at one of the many beaches where we finally got to see the white sands and turquoise waters of Western Australia that we had heard so much about, before we had a poke around in the information centre of Whale World and then decided that we weren't going to pay the entry fee and continued on around the point.

After we had visited a couple more beaches we stopped at some blowholes by the edge of the water but despite huge amounts of air being pushed through the holes, there were no water jets to be seen today. Then it was on to a couple of the more well known landmarks in the area as we went to see 'The Gap' and 'The Natural Arch', which had both been formed by the erosion of the rocks by the water. From the viewing platform above the gap we could see right down into the gully where the water was rushing in from the ocean much like Thunder Cave in Victoria. We then spent a while trying to find where the natural arch was and eventually made our way back to the pathway to find that we had actually been walking along the top of it. From the platform we could see the arch above the water that is on several of the postcards for the area but it really wasn't all that spectacular so we headed on back to camp to check out our local beach.

When we got back to Middleton beach we headed off along the sand up towards Emu Point and with the sun still out it was great to be back on some sand again after the desert landscapes of the Red Centre and the Nullarbor. We walked along for an hour or so before heading back along the footpath through the bushes and back to camp where we commandeered the log fire in the camp kitchen to keep us warm as the night set in. We stayed up with Laurie and Lauren (no, really that's their names!) enjoying the heat from the fire whilst indulging in an evening of poker, although obviously there was no money involved as none of us were in a position to part with our hard earned cash! We also had the added entertainment of a group of people from South Australia watching the local AFL derby between Adelaide and Port Adelaide and getting just a little bit passionate about it!