A Night at the Hilton Garden Inn, Albany, WA

Continuing our three day break in the South West, we drove down to Albany with a stop in Coalmine Bay and Broke for lunch. I should point out that this isn’t a grammatical error, there is a place called Broke!

This beach looks perfect for a summer swim.

The drive from Pemberton to Albany is almost three hours, by the time we had stopped a couple of times, we finally arrived in Albany at 4.30 pm.

We normally stay in an apartment in Albany, but I noticed when I looked on Booking.Com that there was a new Hilton, so thought we would check this out. It’s in a great location, overlooking the harbour. I didn’t book a sea view but guess what we ended up with a fantastic view over the harbour. We had a beautiful luxurious room with lovely toiletries from Crabtree and Evelyn, no expense spared there.
The reception, bar and restaurant are all located in the same space downstairs, making it all very intimate.



After checking in and unloading our bags it was still light out so we went to have a look at the latest silo mural, which we could actually see from our room.

The above mural was painted by New York artists Yok and Sheryo. It features the Ruby Red Seadragon, and is only the third species of its kind ever recorded. It was discovered on the Albany shores 150 years ago. I’ve been fortunate to see quite a few of these silo art murals around Australia, but hope to see them all one day.

We had a quick drink at the Royal George Hotel before heading back for dinner at The Garrison.

For dinner that night I had booked The Garrison, which as you might guess is situated on top of the hill where the old garrison used to be. It’s a wonderful restaurant with great service and food. I find many places we go now are short staffed due to Covid, some places manage superbly with only two or three serving but others don’t seem to have coped as well. The wait staff seemed to move swiftly between table to table and we had no waiting time at all between courses. A definite 10/10 from me, I must remember to write a review.

After a great night’s sleep and an invigorating shower using the deluxe toiletries we headed down for a buffet breakfast.
The rain had set in by now so we chose to head off to our final stop, Margaret River. I realised after I looked at the map that I had planned our trip backwards, which meant much more driving! From here to Margaret River it was a four hour drive.

I spotted this cute elephant down an alley as we were walking around yesterday.
On the side of a vets as we drove out of Albany

The endless drive through rain and sun

A cheeky add for PPAC

More on the Historic Trail of Country Towns, WA

Continuing on with our road trip to Kalgoorlie, we left Northam around 10 a.m. after breakfast. Our first stop today was a small place called Meckering.

Meckering

The most famous thing about this town is the earthquake in 1968, with a magnitude of 6.5 and injuring 28 people. We stopped to look at one of the houses that suffered, the remains have been left as a memory. I don’t suppose for a minute that Mrs. Snooke would have imagined an earthquake in this rural town.

Meckering dates back to 1898 with a population of 225, today it’s not much more at 265.

We had chosen the worst day to travel with dreary grey skies and constant rain, my dear hubby wouldn’t leave the car!

Cunderdin

A very brief stop in Cunderdin for a coffee at the Ettamogah Pub. A traditional country pub designed on the ‘Etamogah’ cartoons by the infamous Ken Maynard. Etamogah means ‘Place of a good drink”.

We couldn’t wait to get back in the warm car after a coffee in this very cold pub!

Merredin

Merridin was next on the trail and fortunately it’s on the silo art trail. The art on this silo was created by urban artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers and extremely impressive.

Time was ticking by now and we really needed to get a move on if we were to arrive in Kalgoorlie before dark.

We stayed at the Rydges Hotel which is about five minutes away from the main town. It seemed to be the best hotel on offer and we had booked two nights here. Tomorrow we will be exploring Kalgoorlie and driving further afield to a ghost town and mine!

Some of the roads we travelled on were indeed under construction!

On the trail of Historic Towns, Western Australia – Toodyay and Northam

We decided to do a three day trip just recently to visit some country towns in Western Australia. These towns were once thriving communities, established at the beginning of the twentieth century by early white settlers. Nowadays these towns rely on the historical landmarks to attract visitors.

Our first stop was to see the silo art which is located just outside of Northam. These incredible paintings were done by artists Phlegm and Hence. Try as I might I cannot find much about Phlegm, only that their paintings are all over the world. Hense is Alex Brewer, an American artist, originating in Atlanta, Georgia.

It is wonderful to see these grey drab buildings being brought to life and there are now many dotted around Australia.

After this we had a quick stop in Toodyay, with a population of approximately 1,500. Before European settlers came to these towns they were populated by the Noongar people.

Toodyay

Population – 1,500. Established in 1836.

Katrine

Next on out trail was a stop at Katrine, a tiny village just outside of Northam where I spotted a church.

St. Saviours Church
Katrine

Northam

We finally got to Northam around 4.30 pm and checked into the Farmers Home Hotel. This is a 150 year old newly renovated building which has 16 rooms. It is a magnificent building, the only downside being no decent restaurant. The Dome coffee house is situated in the building and offers guests a dinner menu. I can’t say we were impressed with the menu.
However we did have a fabulous room and in the distance you could see the Avon River. We managed a quick walk along the banks of the river before heading back to the bar.

Farmers Home Hotel
Our room
Our view on a very bleak day!

With reflection

The next day we checked out and began the long drive to Kalgoorlie, this would take around 6 hours including stops. My dear hubby loves a good long drive so this was perfect for him.

I will be featuring more historical towns in my next post. I hope you can make the journey with me!