We got some bad news this morning, our eldest son, Benjamin, who is minding our property, had an accident in my car and is in hospital. He lost control of the car in some gravel and ran into a large redgum. He’s ok; one of the nurses told him the seatbelt saved his life. He has some bruising and cuts and will be in hospital till Monday. There’s a few chores that we’ve needed to do for a while and we got around to them this morning. I polished my boots, and gave our jackets a coat of dubbin, mine in particular was looking and feeling really dried out.	WHAT'S LEFT OF MY CAR
STEVE & MELANIE	First stop was the Harley dealership, Tony is collecting business cards from every dealership that we call into. We missed a couple of places, Sydney and Brisbane, because we didn’t want to go driving through big cities that we’re unfamiliar with while towing the trailer. As we walked in we passed a couple leaving the shop. When we got inside we mentioned that we were Victorians and were told the couple we’d just passed were too. I quickly went outside to say hello before they took off. Steve and Melanie have been touring around also, but they are staying in motels and carrying everything they need in bags on the bike and on their back. They went to the HOG Rally and continued on from there around the west.
We then went and had a look down town and went to the visitors centre and who should be there but George and Jenny and one of their daughters. Last time we saw them Tony said to the girls that if we met up again he’d take them for a ride, so that’s what he did. You couldn’t get the smile off her face afterwards, she thoroughly enjoyed it. Sandalwood grows in Western Australia and Albany has a factory, Mt Romance, which produces cosmetics and oils. Sandalwood is distilled into oils that are used in various personal care products produced at the plant Tony and I went on a tour of the plant and looked through their shop. Our tent is right beside the camp kitchen which is really handy. The kitchen has a tele and a pot belly stove, it’s freezing cold here in Albany, you wouldn’t know that we’re a few days from summer. Tony got a fire going while I cooked dinner; we bought a bbq pack from the caravan park store.	WARMING BY THE FIRE

CAVE POINT LIGHTHOUSE	We went for a ride through Torndirrup National Park, a coastal park which contains massive granite outcrops and unusual rock formations such as Gap, the Natural Bridge and the Blowholes.  It’s another cold day. First stop was Cave Point Lighthouse. It’s not a traditional lighthouse it’s one of two Australian Cospas-Sarsat satellite ground receiver stations, the other is in Bundaberg. They’re part of a worldwide system that detects emergency beacons activated by people in distress.
We went to Natures Bridge and the Gap some rock formations along the coast. There were lots of tourists there, which makes it difficult at times to get photos without people swarming all over them. The waves were crashing against the rocks which made us think our next stop would be worthwhile. Next stop was the Blowholes. A sign at the beginning of the path did say that if there are not large waves and no wind blowing it is probably a waste of time walking down the 780m path to see the Blowholes as they won’t be blowing. We glanced at the sign and continued on down the path. It was windy and the waves at our last stop were reasonably large. Guess what, not large enough, the Blowholes weren’t blowing. It seemed nobody took notice of the sign as quite a few people were heading down the path, maybe we’re all optimists.	THE GAP
NATURES BRIDGE	Continuing on around the bay our next stop was Whaleworld. We had a picnic lunch before going inside to have a look at the gift shop. We didn’t bother with looking through Whaleworld, we learnt a bit about the whaling industry another time when we visited Boydtown on the NSW coast. Entry to Whaleworld was $20 per head, and we weren’t that interested. We followed the road right around to the end which is Frenchman’s Beach then turned and headed back to town.
One thing we’d missed on our journey around the bay that we caught on our way back was Albany Wind Farm. There are lots of large wind turbines that produce clean power. But the nicest thing about the wind farm is all the wildflowers that grow around the turbines and the wonderful views of the area. We grabbed some groceries and went home. Tony lit a fire again and I made a pot of minestrone, there’s got to be some good things about the freezing weather here, a nice hot fire and soup. For supper we popped some corn on the fire. We received a couple of text messages from Steve and Melanie this evening.	ALBANY WINDFARM
FLOWERS GROWING NEAR THE WINDFARM	FLOWERS GROWING NEAR THE WINDFARM CLICK FOR NEXT PAGE