Bluff Knoll take two

Sunday, March 13th, 2011 at 10:07pm

Today was supposed to be a rest day with us sitting around doing nothing much in Albany. Instead today was taken up by the three hour walk up Bluff Knoll in the Stirling Ranges.

Bluff Knoll, Stirling Ranges

While only six kilometres to the top and back, it does take the advertised three to four hours as very little of it is flat. In fact I am doing it a disservice by calling it a walk, it was more like a climb up uneven wooden and/or rock steps.

Those following along would know that the initial plan was to do the climb first thing yesterday, it was the reason we chose to stay just north of the National Park. However, when we arrived at the Bluff Knoll carpark it was both raining and surrounded by low cloud. We decided against getting wet for no view, so instead headed directly for the coast east of Albany where we visited a few bays and beaches before heading to Albany for lunch.

The late afternoon was then consumed by a visit to Whale World (much expanded since my previous visit almost two decades ago) followed by the nearby attractions of the gap and natural bridge, some lookouts. We closed off the evening with shooting the sunset over the Albany Wind Farm, which unlink other wind farms we have been past, has plenty of lookouts and lets you get close to at least one wind turbine.

Albany Wind Farm at sunset

The weather this morning in Albany was promising for good weather at Bluff Knoll, so we drove the 80 kilometres back north and did the climb. Afterwards we headed out through the park on the Stirling Range Drive and the returned to Albany via Mount Barker. We picked up some takeaway dinner and took it up the Mount Melville lookout where there is an observation tower.

Mount Melville Observation Tower

The sun wasn’t quite set so we continued wandering through town via the port, but were a bit to late to the Mount Clarence lookout where shots of Albany didn’t work, but shots of the green lit Desert Mounted Corps Memorial were interesting. We are now back at the motel and should be collecting our washing from the dryer soon.

Desert Mounted Corps Memorial

Tomorrow we leave Albany with our destination being the Margaret River region. However it is currently looking like a late departure (need to stop by a Subaru service centre for some advice) and many stops (eg lunch with Elephants Rock cider in Denmark) will mean a late arrival into Augusta or Margaret River. This will push our visit to the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse to the following day, ie no sunset, but we will adapt.

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2 Responses to “Bluff Knoll take two”

  1. Really enjoying following along your trip Stephen. I visited many of these places on a 6 month trips with my family in 1992. Your frequent updates with photos kinda make it like I’m on the trip too. If I do any sort of extended holiday in the future I think I’ll try “live blogging” it too. As I beats disappearing for a few weeks and then returning with hundreds of photos and commentary to go through with everyone.

    Wes - March 14th, 2011 at 10:06 am

  2. It is good to see someone else getting something from my posts. Of course this entire trip is just an excuse to force me back into regular posts :)

    I am also reliving a previous family trip (1994 I think it was) where we flew to Perth for a few weeks and as part of that we drive the Kalgoorlie-Esperance-Albany-Margaret River loop.

    Stephen - March 14th, 2011 at 11:42 am