DAY 127… A VISIT TO ABC, DOME AND THE LOOKOUTS OF ALBANY….

As we were staying in Albany for a few days, we were keen to attend church again.  Quite often we are on the road or moving around on a Sunday so when we have a few days somewhere it is nice to be able to attend a service. 

 We joined the Albany Baptist Church for their service.  It was a fairly big church with a school attached.  The congregation was made up more of older folk, and for the most part it was more of a traditional service, although we enjoyed it very much.  The folk here were quite friendly with several coming up and introducing themselves to us.  We even got invited out for dinner the following evening.

Lunch at the Dome in Albany

After church, we decided to all have lunch at the “Dome”.  Dôme Cafes are proudly Western Australian and have been serving the fantastic coffee and an extensive all-day menu for over twenty years.  The food was good and very reasonably priced and we wondered why we hadn’t visited one of these Cafés earlier.  We spent a couple of hours just enjoying our meal and the surroundings before heading off to visit the Information Centre in town. 

Albany Visitors Centre were very helpful.

We wanted to visit the Info Centre to check out some tourist attractions in Albany so that we could plan our time wisely so as to fit in as much as we could.  Ian and Kathy had been here before so they at least had some idea of some of the places that were worth checking out.  The National Anzac Centre though had been built since they were last here, so it was definitely one of the things on our list of things to do and see. 

After visiting the Info Centre, we headed around to check out the “Brig Amity”.

This ship is a replica of the original vessel which brought the first white settlers to Albany.  It is open to the public for a small entrance fee and you can roam above decks and explore below deck to see how the crew members lived during their journey from Sydney across the Great Australian Bight, before finally arriving in Western Australia for the first time.

The Replica was built in 1975 and is placed a few hundred metres from where Major Edmund Lockyer and the party of forty-five arrived on the shores of Princess Royal Harbour on Christmas Day 1826, officially being the first people to land and settle in WA.

Major Lockyer set up a millitary garrison at King George Sound, which is now named Albany, Western Australia.  

The Amity continued on her journey from there, supplying another new colony along the Swan River (now Fremantle and Perth).

On 18 June 1845 the Amity was wrecked off Northern Tasmania but her legacy remains. 

From here we went for a drive up to the telecommunications tower which sits on top of Mt Melville.  Climbing the tower was easy…. Flat filled in steps spiralling up with a couple of landings.   This tourist lookout is free and a great place to view Albany with 360 degree views of Albany to the Southern Ocean across the bays and King George Sound.

Ian and Kathy left us here and headed back to the caravan Park.  We still wanted to check out Padre White Lookout and  the Desert Mounted Corp Memorial on the top of Mt Clarence.  

We enjoyed a lovely scenic drive around then King George Sound, then heading up to Mount Clarence. 

The ANZAC Desert Corp Memorial has incredible views over the Princess Royal Harbour and King George Sound.

The ANZAC Desert Mounted Corps Memorial is a duplicate of the original statue erected at Port Said, Egypt and unveiled on 23 November 1932 by the rt. Hon. William Morris Hughes. It was irreparably damaged during the Suez Crisis in 1956. The masonry was salvaged and brought to australia for re-erection on this site which, for many troops who sailed from King George Sound in 1914, was their last glimpse of Australian soil. It was unveiled by rt. Hon. Sir Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia on 11 October 1964.

Erected by their comrades and the Governments of Australia & New Zealand, the memorial commemorates the members of the Australian Light Horse, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, the Imperial Camel Corps & the Australian Flying Corps who lost their lives in Egypt, Palestine & Syria 1916 - 1918.

The memorial itself is accessed via a set of stairs and walkways leading toward the memorial close to the summit. It's a beautiful walk with amazing views.

The walk is lined with memorials and native bushland and there are several places to stop during your ascent and descent.

King George Sound and the barrier islands make an amazing backdrop to the walk.

Our plan for the following day was to spend the time up at the National Anzac Centre, so although we went for a  drive up to Mt Adelaide, we only spent a short amount of time wandering through the gardens of the National Anzac Centre before heading back to the caravan park also. 

Big day planned for tomorrow.