Even though I spent six months in Australia recently, I didn’t do that much travelling, preferring to stay in Perth with my family. I did manage to spend a few days ‘down south’, as we say, visiting Denmark (the town, not the country) and Albany.
Not many people go to Albany for a weekend away, most seem to prefer going to the Margaret River and Busselton regions but neither of those have ever had any appeal to me. I’ve always like Albany though. It’s so much more than just a commercial centre. It’s a great place to go whale watching and you’ll find one of the most beautiful beaches in the world 10 minutes drive from the city centre.
Albany also has many great places to eat, most of them are quite casual but there are a few upmarket places too. One place I quite like is Calamari’s at Beachside. Depending on what you feel like doing, there are three different places to eat within the one establishment. You can grab takeaway fish and chips and eat on the beach which is about 20 metres away. This is one of my favourite summertime activities and a popular choice with just about everyone.
Unfortunately Albany isn’t warm all that often so when the temperatures drop you can either eat in the casual bar/cafe or head next door to the seafood restaurant. We enjoyed happy hour and a snack one evening in the bar and another night we ate at the restaurant where the seafood was great.
F loves his seafood so started with half a dozen oysters. I don’t get the appeal of oysters but he loved them and said they were better than the Croatian oysters he tried last year.
For his main, F had grilled fish and chips. I can’t remember what the fish of the day was but that was a huge piece of fish.
I’m not crazy about fish and seafood, even though I’ll eat it occasionally, but on this night I stuck to the vegetarian option which was a creamy pasta with broccoli. It was a little boring unfortunately but F was happy with his meal so I was happy.
This is a great setting for a quiet dinner for two. The restaurant is right on the water so you can watch the waves roll in or even watch someone skinny dipping as we did that night.
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