Our day started early from the Porongurups. If you haven’t read part 1 of my hiking trip adventure please find it here. I felt elated from the previous day, we had spent hours outside, hiking up amazing mountains and seeing beautiful wildflowers and lush greenery. I always feel great being outdoors, and my good vibes were continuing. Little did I know disaster was just around the corner.

It is quite ironic because the previous night I had a really vivid dream of being in an earthquake. I saw a building rip right out of the ground into a giant wave, full of screaming distraught people, all of us running with fright for our lives. I then began to fly through the sky, making my get away, returning to bare foot running, I realised I literally just had the clothes on my back. For some reason I was suddenly destitute and running randomly around Perth suburbs, somewhat aimlessly. I also had a strong connection with my Mum in this dream, that was the best part. Well so was the flying, that is always fun, even when you are fleeing an erupting earthquake! Gosh I have an over active imagination! I digress, back to my road trip…I just wanted to highlight I must have had some subconscious awareness of my impending doom.

Once the car was packed up we made our way to Albany, a quaint seaside town 4.5 hours south east of Perth. I have been there numerous times, but I always enjoy returning. We made our way straight out to Frenchman’s Peninsula, which is where all these amazing attractions are. Firstly we stopped at the Gap, admiring the crashing waves and epic high viewing point.

 

We then drove around to various other look outs including Salmon Holes and another one just after it for more unique ocean views. I was loving it! To top off an excellent tiki tour, we stopped at Goode Beach for a walk and catch some sunshine. The day was absolutely perfect and I felt happy to be at one of my favourite beaches on the planet. The view makes you feel you are on some islands in Thailand, but no, you are in close to the most southern point in WA, and it is just spectacular. White chalky beach sand, aqua marine blue water, it really is very perfect.

It was just after this point that my day started to go from brilliant to catastrophic. With no more than a warning light ‘transmission malfunction service immediately’ my Ford Focus 2012 lost power and died. I stopped on the side of the road, disbelieving my reality. NO! After a brief pause, I started the car again to see if I could drive it into town, we were fortunately only 3km from a town, so it could have been a lot worse! With some luck, I got the car to the Ford depot, driving slowly, again only stopping 200m from the destination, again having to repeat the process to finally make it. Unbelievable. This car had already had two transmission replacements! Anyhow, long dramatic teary story short, we were given a loan car by a very kind dealer at Albany World of Cars and we were able to make our way back to our accomodation for the night.

The next day we made our way back into town for a walk around and breakfast. We walked in and out of a few cool shops and I bought myself some fabulous new brown leather boots, which I love. New shoes make everything better!

The weather was dreary, the rain had set back in, and now with a broken down car it was time to hire another car, and sadly cut the road trip short to return to Perth. After the emotional turmoil of the previous day, I was ready to go home. I was disappointed to miss out on visiting my friends in Narrogin, but hopefully that will be for another day, perhaps in my new car!

If you have not made it to Albany before or it has been awhile between visits, I can highly recommend heading down there. It is a very pretty little town, with lots of outdoors options, great restaurants and interesting shops. I will be back!

Anita xx