Driving into Albany I had a very similar experience to driving into Kununurra. I don’t know what I was expecting but it was nothing like what we found when we got here. Albany is a town of 35000 people and like Kununurra I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I do. It’s a really beautiful and friendly place with a fabulous feel to the place. It looks and feels very much like Hobart and is set in amongst some very rugged hills and surrounded by an extremely wild Southern Ocean. Looking over some of the cliff tops around Albany, I’ve seen the biggest waves I’ve ever seen in my life. Not somewhere I’ll be getting my board out of its bag.
I did get to surf in the Southern Ocean though. We took a day trip back across to Denmark, a small village 60km west of Albany. We had a look at a beach there on our way through to Albany and although the surf beach and point break looked good, we decided not to stay there but to drive over from Albany if we had time and felt like it. Which we did and discovered on doing so that it was just as well we didn’t stay there. I’ve surfed some pretty unfriendly places over the years – Malua Bay and Broulee on their day can be unpleasant – but Denmark wins hands down as the worst spot I’ve ever surfed as far as the behaviour of the locals goes. It was the most aggressive, openly hostile, arrogant, nasty place I’ve ever surfed. Usually its only the young local turks overdosed on testosterone who’ll give you grief out in the water and usually even they will tolerate your presence if you show them some respect, give them priority on waves for a while and remain friendly. Guys my age are almost always over all that anti-tourist, competitive chest beating nonsense and most will even chat with you out in the water and let waves through for you eventually. Not at Denmark though. The three local guys out in the line up were about my age and between them they made it their business to ensure that I did not get a wave while they were there. Every wave became a hassling competition, every wave they saw me paddle for, one or more of them would paddle inside me to take the wave even when they were paddling back out after having just had one. Even when I won the waves, they would drop in on me anyway. Despite all this I remained relatively calm, tried to stay friendly and still tried sparking up conversations until one of them finally said “we don’t need to talk to you mate so piss off”. Unbelievable! I eventually got a few reasonable waves, but it wasn’t a particularly fun day. Since then I’ve learnt that this sort of attitude permeates the rest of the town as well. It turns out that recently many of the Denmark residents were whinging and protesting about the number of new people moving into their town. They didn’t like the fact that the town was growing and that they’d have to support a larger population. Apparently, many letters to the editor were written to a few of the local rags telling anyone thinking of moving to their part of the world that they should think again because they weren’t welcome. My advice would be to listen to those Denmark locals. Don’t move there, there are plenty of other locations that are just as appealing where the people are much easier to live with!