Experience the best of Albany

Albany stands on King George Sound on Western Australia's south coast, where a military outpost was founded in 1826, three years before Perth, making it the oldest European settlement in the state. Old stone buildings fill the town centre. In 1914 the first troop convoys of the Australian and New Zealand armies sailed from the sound for the First World War, and the National Anzac Centre in Albany Heritage Park tells the story.

Torndirrup National Park, south of the town, has the granite chasm called the Gap, the Natural Bridge and blowholes where the Southern Ocean pounds the coast. A former whaling station at Frenchman Bay, closed in 1978, is now a museum. Inland, the Porongurup Range and the Stirling Range rise from the plains, with Bluff Knoll the highest peak of the Stirlings.

Great Southern wines, oysters from Oyster Harbour and fresh fish fill the local menus. Southern right whales visit King George Sound in winter and spring, when the days are cool and often wet.