Albany: where Australia farewelled the ANZACs

On the southern coast of Western Australia, Albany was the last port seen by ANZAC troops headed toward Gallipoli in the distant 1914.

A car remains useful for reaching the surrounding coasts.

The National Anzac Centre, a museum overlooking the bay, recounts the departure of Australian and New Zealand military convoys toward World War I.

A few minutes away, The Gap and Natural Bridge, rock formations carved by the Antarctic Ocean over millennia of erosion, offer suspended catwalks with panoramic sea views.

Continuing along the coast, one reaches Albany's historic whaling station, today a museum dedicated to the past whale hunting practiced in the region until the 1970s.

Toward evening, the historic harbor animates with seafood restaurants with views of the spacious King George Sound bay.

Albany, the first European settlement in Western Australia founded in eighteen twenty-six, was the departure point for ANZAC convoys heading to Gallipoli in nineteen fourteen, an episode commemorated each year on April twenty-five.

Albany's whaling station, active until nineteen seventy-eight as Australia's last, recounts to visitors a now-abandoned practice in favor of whale-watching at sea during their seasonal migration.