I slept really well last night, about 10 hours. About 9 or 10 hours is average at the moment, all this sea air tires me out! This was such a lovely peaceful camp site and it was great to wake up to the beautiful panoramic view across the bay to Albany. After breakfast I drove into Albany. This is the biggest place I have been to since leaving Perth. I parked up at the shopping centre and had a walk down the main street and had a look around the shops and went down to the water front. I had a look at the road trains coming in. These are huge trucks with about 3 trailers. I’ll be coming across loads of these on the roads particularly as I venture into the more remote areas. I also saw a replica of the Brig Amity ship.
‘On 25th December 1826, the Brig Amity arrived and anchored near what is now known as Albany. It brought a military party and convicts under the command of Major Edmund Lockyer. They came here to establish the first European settlement in the western part of the continent and built a small outpost here more than two years before the Swan River Colony , now Perth , was established in 1829. The Amity brought immense change to the traditional owners of the land , the Minang people,who, over thousands of years, had developed a complex and deep relationship with this land known as Kinjarling, the place of rain'

After exploring the town I got some provisions from K-Mart and Coles and then went to find my camp site for the night, the Middleton Beach Holiday Park. It should have been $40 a night here, but I managed to negotiate them down to $30. It is right on the beach front and is the first camp site I’ve been to which has a swimming pool. I found my allocated plot and then went straight for a swim. I swam non stop for about 25 minutes which was great. I’ve not had a proper swim for about 2 years. Then it was just a chillin’ afternoon so after the swim I went to the beach, literally, a 20 second walk away from the camper!, and sat on the beach and relaxed and later had a little walk right down the beach and back. I’m conserving energy for the next two days because I’m heading to some mountain ranges to do some serious walking. Nothing much else to report today, except that I had a lovely meal as always, washed down with beer. Didn’t like this camp site that much though, it was too busy and just didn’t have a friendly vibe to it. I think I prefer the much smaller camp sites, the people generally always seem to be so much nicer on them. Also the big sites have more foreign tourists on them whereas the smaller lesser known sites just seem to have the Aussies on them who are much friendlier.
Nite nite my lovely blog followers. Can’t wait for the hiking tommorow. Sweet dreams