We decided to head to Albany for new-years. As we arrived to meet with some family first of, I was astounded by the incredible beauty and sights that were there already.

In the area not too far from there was also the University of Western Australia, or at least a building of it. This building which once served as the post office for Albany was quite old by Australian standards (1869!).

Two Peoples Bay

That same day we decided to go down to Two Peoples Bay, a Nature Reserve with a beautiful beach. Notably the beach has squeaky sand, where if you cause friction on the sand the sand squeecks.

The beach itself was quite clean, and also not that large, it was a small crescent shape, and the waters were pristinely blue.

Getting down on to the beach we noticed hundreds of bluebottles¹ that were dried up and dead along the waters edge, as well as seaweed.

We were able to have a nice swim despite the many blue bottles there, and didn’t have any issues. I fought against the waves and blew forward and back with the waves.

The actual new-years.

Later in the evening, we actually did start to celebrate the new years, the fireworks show was very busy for the size of the area, I would estimate maybe 20k people showed up? Parking was a struggle. The show was nice, and we ended up sleeping quite modestly at 12:30.

The last day

For our last full day there, we had a look around the area, went and visited some places and played Colonists of Catan most of the day, as well as packing our things.

Overall, the trip was a lovely escape from our regularities, the beaches were incredible and the people were kind.