"Albany - The Rainbow Coast" a Albany Travel Page by Mikebb

At the bottom of South Western Australia is the City of Albany facing the Southern Ocean. It is located 409km south of Perth and is situated on the picturesque King George Sound, a most magnificent harbour which would rival for beauty the famous Sydney Harbour located on the eastern seaboard. It is a city of 52,000 people and is the regional centre for the Great Southern, an area covering 40,000 square kilometres of rich untouched forests, waterways, pristine beaches and coastline, adventure trails, farmlands, vineyards, craftsmen, particularly timber etc. It is a fine place to live and holiday.

Each year all Western Australian Orchid Societies meet the first weekend in August for a Challenge to see which Society can claim to be the Best in WA for that year. This year Albany Orchid Society hosted the Challenge and we travelled over 400 km to the Great Southern for a fabulous weekend. It was mid winter and we braced ourselves for the notorius cold weather, however we were lucky with warm sunny days. This enabled us to enjoy the many beautiful tourist sights of the Great Southern and obtain many photos for VT.

For those interested in hiking or bushwalking Albany is the place to visit. There are bushwalks everywhere and the ones we enjoyed were through the coastal reserves with beautiful native trees and bush, some just commencing to flower, and on the other side is the King George Sound and Southern Ocean. There is a trail for everyone, if you are not so fit drive up to Mt Clarence and take a short walk through the native bush, you most likely will see some of the local animals.