Video Transcript
Welcome to Wout of the World, and in this episode, we’re still cruising the south Coast of Australia, in Western Australia, because this is the city of Albany and Torndirrup National Park.
And in the previous episode, we had just arrived in Australia’s incredible Southwest. In the town of Esperance, we drove the Great Ocean Drive. And we explored Cape La Grand, the National Park with the best beaches in all of Australia, including the number one beach in the world at Lucky Bay. We now drive our four-wheel drive camper of WA Experts into the Outback.
It was so sad that we had to leave Esperance, but we’re still on our way making the road trip all the way to Perth, and within three hours, we reach this Bush Camp site. We’ll be putting up camp right over there with the two rooftop tents, and it’s just one more hour to Albany, our next destination in Western Australia. Love it.
Near the town of Jerramungup, we have a little outback party with beers and hot dogs. At the Pallinup River, we couldn’t get any more into the wild, and that’s still why we love Australia so much. From here, it’s only one and a half hour to Albany through green hills and pine forests. And how is this for a campsite?
So we’ve reached a town called Albany, and from here it’s only 400 kilometres left to Perth on the beautiful South Coast. It sounds like nothing, but it’s actually still more than my entire country is big. I do realise that. But in Australian terms, only 400 kilometres, but we couldn’t skip Albany. We’re here in the woods next to the King River, a beautiful place also for the kids, and we’ll be doing the spectacular sites, the cliffs, the beaches of Albany.
It’s a kangaroo paradise again, guys. Five of them over there.
The city of Albany is located in a beautiful area with some bays, rocky peninsulas, islands, and beaches. Today, we’re going to make a drive along the most beautiful sites, and I hope we’re going to get some sun because the weather is not all that, and we start at Emu Point.
We see straight away that Albany has the most beautiful bus stops. And many playgrounds too. Emu Point has clear and shallow water and is therefore great for swimming and heading out for a picnic. It’s a narrow strait connecting Oyster Harbour and King George Sound.
We continue our drive towards the city centre where you find Middleton Beach and also the ruins of an old lighthouse. It’s a perfect spot for droning.
Across the water, we can already see the Vancouver Peninsula, and this here is Shoal Bay.
The lush nature we’ll be exploring next. The industrial town of Albany has about 40,000 people, and it’s your typical WA coastal town.
It’s the history as a whaling and fishing town and the nearby coastal National Park that make this town so unique and popular with tourists. From the city of Albany, we drove across the water, and over there we find Torndirrup National Park.
And in that National Park, there are incredible bays and beaches like the one behind me. And this is the peninsula called Bald Head. Over there, you’ll find beaches like this one called Salmon Beach, and the water is incredible.
From July to January, this Coast is full of salmon before they head West to breed in the Indian Ocean, the tropical current flowing around the Southwest Cape helps to spread the eggs all over the Southern coastline of Australia and therefore helps spread the salmon.
The drive through Torndirrup National Park is short but breathtaking, with a completely different landscape around every corner.
We drove to the other side of Bald Head, that beautiful peninsula over there, and you’ll find the Murray Boat Ramp. There’s this spectacular little beach with big rocks, and just behind there is Misery Beach, which is the widest beach of the area. Torndirrup National Park is incredibly beautiful, guys.
Who on Earth named this place Misery Beach? This pure and untouched corner of Australia is one of the most stunning natural places we have seen on the big lap.
On the same peninsula, we pass a site with some historic significance because from 1800 until 1978, there used to be a whaling station here in Albany.
And not just a whaling station, it was actually the last one to close and stop hunting for whales in 1987. So for 178 years, people would go out here and kill whales. And now you can just see the boat where this used to happen and the entire area and the station. Yeah, and it’s a beautiful place.
It’s hard to imagine such a tragic history of killing in a setting like this. The connecting beach with that insane blue painting in the water is called Whaling Cove Beach. And on that beach is one of the ships responsible for catching over a thousand humpback whales and nearly 15,000 sperm whales since 1952. I like it better as a museum.
Just one more beach to go. This here is Frenchman Beach, named after Frenchman Bay. That’s the entire area, the entire water in front of us. It’s a really wide beach, and it’s insanely beautiful again.
Frenchman Bay Beach is probably your best pick for spending a day at the beach near Albany.
It’s easily accessible, has some facilities, and shallow waters for swimming.
Here in Albany, we find another major site. It’s the cheapest diesel that we found in all of Australia. The highest diesel price that we paid was about 230, and over here it’s 163.8, which is the cheapest in the entire country that we’ve seen so far. Smiling.
After so many kilometres on expensive gas, You can imagine our happiness. But the animals that are hopping around here make our day even better. It’s the golden hour again, and I don’t mean the sun is going down. Yeah, that too. But we also see a lot of kangaroos everywhere in the meadows.
There’s two over here that I’m going to show you.
That’s it, unfortunately, for this episode here in Albany, but we’ll be driving the South Coast all the way to Perth, and the next stop will be Denmark. So we’re going to Europe? No, Denmark, Western Australia. See you there.
We make a stop at Cape Kennedy, a special little haven near the beach. And we go wine tasting in Denmark. Check in next time and subscribe to see the end of our big lap. Ciao.
Wout of the World
Online travel show in Dutch and English with World traveler and actor Wout of the World. In dozens of episodes Wout takes you out for adventure all over the world, always in the most budget-friendly way. Enjoy over 120 countries from your couch, phone or the computer.