
I fell in love the moment we entered the harbor. Little
islands of green dotted the harbor entrance as the sun lazily made its morning
climb. We had an early excursion and were on the road by 8:45 AM. Looking out
across the bay was a bit like déjà vu. The way the sun shone silvery through
the early morning haze was much like the scenes from the New Zealand sounds.
We had been told a week prior that the excursion would not
include the wind farm as promised because of road construction but we were
delighted to hear that we were on our way there. They must have made progress
or else felt safe in letting us travel over the area of road that was mostly
red dirt now. If it had rained, I think the wind farm would have stayed
canceled.
We’ve been to windfarms before so that wasn’t as attractive
to us as the lookouts along the trail that ran in between the softly whispering
giants. Not a lot of wind this day but a welcome gentle breeze. The sun had
pretty much burned off the morning haze and now we could see it shimmering off
blue and turquoise waters below us.
Our guide told us that there was the chance of seeing some
skinks (lizards) and perhaps other critters—maybe even a python that seem to
have taken up residence. Lizards, okay. Snakes, no. I watched my step. We made
it back to the bus without any encounters.

We did have a question of ours answered by a sign in the
Torndirrup National Park. The unusual flowers we’d seen on some trees are
called banksia. When I first saw a bloom, I thought someone had stuck a corn cop on the tree. The sign said something about honey but I’ll have to do a
little more research on that one. That’s the other great thing about revisiting
places at different times of the year. You see things blooming or in different
stages in a life cycle. We’d never seen the banksia before.
A bit ahead of schedule, our bus driver took it slower as we
passed by several fields where we could see kangaroos in the distance under the
shade of a tree. One even got up and hopped a bit to the delight of many on the
bus.

Again, the views from the top were great. And I happened
upon a plant I recognized. I’ve never seen it growing naturally. I knew it from
my days as a florist. The plant is called kangaroo paws or at least that is the
name I knew it by. It’s always fun to find flowers I used back then growing in
the places we visit.


We bid goodbye to Albany. Well, not really goodbye but more
like “See ya’ again sometime!”
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