February 18 – Albany, Australia

We are tendered across the bay to Albany today…and it is a pretty large bay.  

Our tour starts with a bus ride through town and up to the Desert Mounted Corp Memorial.  It commemorates the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp) soldiers who died during WWI.  Their first major conflict in that war was in Gallipoli in Turkey.  The battle was particularly brutal and a very large percent of the forces lost their lives there.  We have seen that the battle is remembered and commemorated all over Australia and New Zealand.

On the drive up there was a large number of small, individual lights on sticks along both sides of the road.  The guide indicated that there was one light for each soldier killed.  It must be amazing when lit at night.

The memorial is on the top of a hill with great views of the rivers and harbors below.  Albany seems to have an abundance of bodies of water all around the area.

We then headed out to nearby Torndirrip National Park.  Unfortunately we don’t have the entire day (or two or three) to hike around the park…it is really beautiful.  We did see the highlights.  Some coastline,

The Gap,

**************************************************
Video of the gap.
**************************************************

and a natural bridge.

From there we drove to a wind farm.  It wasn’t huge…

but it had great views.

On the drive back into town we saw some of the old Victorian era buildings

and the waterfront.  It is a pretty major agricultural area so there were a lot of grain storage units at the waterfront.  

The Albany Entertainment Center, on the waterfront, looked like it was conceived as a miniature version of the Sydney Opera House..