Day 4 – Albany to Pemberton – 18 September 2017

We left Albany about 10am after stopping at a few places to try and find an external card reader as the memory card reader on my laptop stopped working at some point, meaning I can’t download pictures for the blog. We made our way to Denmark where we turned off State Highway 1 onto Ocean Beach Road to Ocean Beach Lookout, Lions Lookout, McGeary’s Rock and Sinker Bay and took some pictures of the incredible views before turning back on to the South Coast Highway.

Next stop was Greens Pool and Elephant Rocks which provided some more amazing views. As we had loads of time to get to Pemberton we basically went to have a look at everything I saw on the map! I am also fascinated by the Australian Flora (not the margarine) as some of it is very similar to South African plants, but some of it is completely foreign to me and very different to anything I’ve ever seen before.

We headed inland after this, and drove through some forests, before getting to The Valley of the Giants near Walpole Wilderness. The trees are huge (the clue is in the title!) and we did the Tree Top Walk, followed by the Ancients Walkway. I can’t say it was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done but it was interesting enough to see and do! I keep hearing bird noises everywhere that I’ve never heard before and I know the birds are around somewhere, but I can never manage to spot them and get a good picture of them, and it was no different on our walks here!

From The Valley of the Giants to Pemberton was a drive dominated by forests on all sides, with not much else to see to break up the monotony. It was another easy enough drive, just kind of dull, though very pleasant and green! Pemberton itself is a bit of a one horse town with not much happening, and even the restaurants they do have were closed on a Monday night… Just as well our hotel (another Best Western) had a huge dining room and both a lounge and public bar, and we decided to not even walk around and try and find other options but to just eat at the hotel. We had a couple of drinks and ordered a very good steak sandwich for Brian and a Roast Lamb dinner for me (with complimentary salad bar!) and were both very happy with our choices. The dining area filled up very quickly and it was clear that the hotel was pretty much the only option for food in the town on a Monday night!