Things to Do in Albany in July

July is mid-season for the humpback migration through King George Sound. Albany sits well, one of the better-positioned towns in southern Australia to intercept it. The cruises out of Albany's waterfront or Emu Point typically run 2-3 hours into the Sound. Calm mornings produce the longest surface time from the animals. Afternoons? Rougher as the onshore breeze builds. You'll be within sight of what was Australia's last operational whale chasing station, closed 1978, now the Whale World museum at Cheynes Beach. This before-and-after context? Most whale watching destinations simply don't have it. Book 7-10 days ahead around the school holiday window in the third week of July. Perth families arrive. Tours fill quickly. Outside that window, last-minute availability is usually reasonable.

Winter is when this walk earns its reputation. The Gap, Natural Bridge, and the Blowholes sit within a 30-minute coastal loop walk of each other in Torndirrup, a granite headland 8 km (5 miles) south of Albany centre. The Gap channels the Southern Ocean into a granite chasm where waves increase upward without warning. Spray carries 20-30 m (65-98 ft) into the air on big swell days. The engineered viewing platforms keep you well back from the edge. Warning signs about wave surges aren't performative caution, people have been swept off these rocks. Go in the morning when the easterly light is clean and the offshore breeze hasn't built yet. The path is sealed and accessible for most fitness levels. Allow 90 minutes to do it without rushing.

Little Beach hides at the eastern arm of Two Peoples Bay, 35 km (22 miles) east of Albany on sealed road through coastal heath that smells of tea-tree oil and salt after rain. The water runs clear to around 4 m (13 ft) on calm July mornings. The pink-orange granite boulders at the headlands show that specific shade that only occurs when feldspar crystallises over millions of years in coastal rock, the kind of colour that looks post-processed until you see it for yourself. Several glassy mornings per week in July. The bay sits flat then, water shifting from deep blue offshore to turquoise over the sand near the shore. Two Peoples Bay shelters one of the last refuges of the noisy scrub-bird, a critically endangered species found almost nowhere else on earth. You'll hear the mechanical, ventriloquist-quality call from the coastal scrub before you have any realistic chance of seeing the bird. Arrive before 10am. The small car park fills quickly on the clearer days.

Bluff Knoll towers at 1,099 m (3,606 ft), the highest peak you can climb in southern Western Australia. Eighty kilometres (50 miles) north of Albany via Chester Pass Road, the drive threads through wheat belt country that looks flat until it doesn't. The return trail clocks in at 6 km (3.7 miles) with 600 m (1,969 ft) of elevation gain. Most fit walkers knock it off in 3-4 hours. No shortcuts. July brings a temperature drop, 10-12°C (18-22°F) colder than Albany town. The upper trail crosses exposed wet granite slabs. Cloud level can sit at 800 m (2,625 ft) for days. When it lifts, and it will, sometimes in minutes, the view south across the wheat belt to the Southern Ocean justifies the detour. Spring wildflowers are still weeks away in July. Instead you get empty trail and low-cloud theatre. Fair trade for September's crowds.

Denmark sits 53 km (33 miles) west of Albany along the South Coast Highway, a 45-minute drive through karri forest and rolling pastoral land that smells of damp earth and eucalyptus after rain. The town keeps a quiet, self-sufficient character that sets it apart from Albany's regional-centre energy. William Bay National Park, on the coast south of town, is the main draw. Greens Pool is a granite-enclosed bay where the Southern Ocean's open-water swell fades into something calm enough to swim in, ringed by smooth grey-white boulders the colour of old bone. In July both Greens Pool and the adjacent Elephant Rocks are essentially crowd-free on weekdays. From Denmark, you can push west another 65 km (40 miles) to the Valley of the Giants near Walpole, where a 600 m (1,969 ft) aerial walkway threads through ancient red tingle trees at canopy height, 40 m (131 ft) above the forest floor, with nothing between you and the treetops but a steel mesh walkway.

The Cheynes IV sits rusting at Discovery Bay precinct, Cheynes Beach, 20 km (12.4 miles) east of Albany, as the last whale chasing vessel to operate in Australian waters. Dry-docked since the station's 1978 closure. The machinery's scale hits hard: a ship built to hunt animals the size of city buses, now parked beside a bay where humpbacks breach within sight of shore. Inside, the exhibition refuses to flinch. Two hours well spent. Back in town, the Albany Historic Precinct on Residency Road keeps British colonial buildings from 1826 intact. The Old Gaol stands solid. The brig Amity replica floats in the same waters where the original vessel anchored two centuries ago. Up on Mount Clarence and Mount Adelaide hills, the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial commands King George Sound. The views explain immediately why early navigators called this harbour one of the finest anchorages in the southern hemisphere.