It’s a spectacular area of our state. Old growth forrests, big open oceans and huge coastlines. I was fortunate enough to spend a few days down south, mainly Albany area for work.
Ngl, the big forrests and oceans there are calling to me. I would definitely move there for a chapter in life. It’s cooler, bigger, spacious, stunning, sparkly, clear, cold water. Great fishing, crazy coastlines, room for a farm, endless exploring and beautiful country.
I snapped a bit of the area in between work. Hope you enjoy them:
Albany is a beautiful town. I had such a surreal experience recently there, that ended up with me joining a stranger’s FaceTime (in a way).
It was dusk and I had left it too late to go photograph any of golden hour. But I went out anyway to Sharp Point Lookout. It looks out across the vast Indian Ocean that connects Australia and Antarctica. If you look west, you can see the Albany Wind Farm turning away in the strong winds.
It was a beautifully peaceful night. Calm with the rolling swells pushing up against the coastal rocks and the usual amount of wind. But this night it was pretty calm up top of the cliffs.
When I arrived at Sharp Point, I was planning to sit and enjoy the view for half an hour and wind down. But there was another car in the car park (it was already pretty dark) and I wondered if I’d bump into the owners as I got out.
Sure enough, as I rounded the corner to the lookout, they were there seated on the platform railing, looking out over the ocean. I could hear some conversation going on, they were very chatty. It was such a serene location, my first thought was for some reason – they were discussing something serious and I should just leave.
Then while I took a few quick photos from nearby, I realised they were speaking German, the conversation was pretty jovial and there was a third voice. They were FaceTiming someone, I’m guessing back in Germany.
Okay, chill then and I took more photos as we exchanged glances. They laughed away with their mate on the other side of the world.
It’s a very common situation. People often sit on the beach or cliff and call family or mates and share the view with them. But for some reason, this one was quite dreamy, mainly due to the scenery and lighting I think.
What seemed like a couple, we’re calling a friend, tens of thousands of kilometres away through that tiny iPhone and I could hear the conversation going as they showed off the stunning sunset.
It was like they were straining for signal. Which of course they weren’t, we had full bars! And it was also like they were facing their friend, so very far away by sitting as close as they could on the edge of the world. Like they’d found the best location where they had peace and quiet and the best chance of hearing their friend.
Logically, they actually had their backs to them direction-wise, RUDE lol and signal wasn’t a factor.
I don’t understand German, so didn’t get the words but it was such a dreamy thing to hear this voice arriving from Germany to Sharp Point through the massive expanse of sky and ocean that was all around us.
Sitting in such a huge open space, you really feel that distance of the person on the other line. Their voice travelling in real time into space and down across 14,500 kms to that tiny 1m of space so their friends could hear it and send back the view of the expanse of the Indian Ocean.
The swells rolled in, the turbines slowly spun away and the wind blustered through our lookout every now and then. I snapped away, until I captured what I wanted.
And off I went.
Hallo and Verabschiedung friend across the ocean. We shared a serene space for a brief moment in the timeline of the world ✨
Nambung is about 200km north of Perth and an interesting place to stop and wander through. I recommend walking and not driving through, you see so much more and it’s a lot more peaceful.
Take an umbrella if you visit in the wet season though, there can be sudden weather changes and the only shelter from the rain is the discovery centre right back at the entrance.
There’s a lot of same same photos of this area. But some of the more interesting ones I’ve seen have been light painting and astrophotography shots. I’ll get there one night for the star shoot.
If you go up the Brand Hwy, then you would have seen these pure white sand dunes off to the right. They run almost right up to the highway and are hard to miss.
The shire has been kind enough to create an official parking area in front of them as many people stop each day and wander over the traffic into the dunes.
There’s dunes as far as you can see so it’s a crazy spot to take photos. Take some sunnies because not only is it bright, but the sand can whip up with the wind and blow into your eyes pretty easily.
There’s some nice flowers and a few native fruits around the dunes if you hunt around.
In this rainy September, I visited Mingenew and the Coalseam Conservation Park to see the wildflowers again. This is the second time I’ve been and it’s a mission to get there from Perth.
About 4.5 hrs north of Perth, the conservation park is a concentrated area of wildflowers that carpet the hills. We’ve been staying in Eneabba, but this time found a campsite in the park – Miners. We’ll be using that next time as it’s right in the park.
The flowers are worth a visit, once in your lifetime if you can make it – do the trek. It really is spectacularly stunning to see rolling hills of everlastings. Get planning!
This time I took the zoom and macro lenses and spent a bit of time trying to capture the amazing views and some footage of the flowers in the breeze. It would be a great night time shoot under the moonlight. This September has been wet and there are some shallow water crossings that are a bit of fun. Ruts can develop in the middle of the unpaved crossing so it pays to walk it first.
If you get a chance, head to Miners in the park and walk east upstream. It seems to be a little less popular with visitors and we found some flowers that weren’t in other locations. It also has a shallow stream flowing along the very visible iron and sand deposits in the embankments. Geologists do group tours there, that tells you something.
It’s worth a full day to just wander slowly and take it in. There’s a lot of people that rush to the lookout, snap away and then head home. But if you take your time, there’s so much to see. Peregrine falcons do hunt the cliffs and I’ve been hoping to see one, no luck yet. I did spot one of my faves though, the crested pigeon.
If you take the Mingenew exit, you pass by a crazy escarpment that looks like something out of South Dakota.
