This prompt, Describe the longest road trip you’ve taken, is provided by Plinky. I’ve also been inspired by The Daily Post prompt, Planes, trains or automobiles? What is your favorite way to travel 500 miles?
My favourite road trip is to the Southern City of Albany. Albany is a wonderful town that my family have gone to a number of times. We love it down there for a number of reasons.
Firstly, my parents – my Dad particularly – are attracted because it was where Dad lived for a few years. His dad was the minister at the Albany Church of Christ, and he completed his High School there. So he knows the place really well, and there is part of that memory that draws them back.
Secondly, there are wineries around, and my parents love their wine. In earlier years, when I was still an alcohol drinker, we would take a day to go and visit all the different wineries that we liked. We especially liked wineries where we got to meet the wine maker, and form a relationship with them. For a while, my parents had a rule that they would only drink wine from wineries where they knew who made the wine. It’s not a bad rule, I think.
Albany is also a great place for relaxing. We enjoy finding a house that looks out over Princess Harbour, or even better Middleton Beach, as we’ll just sit where there’s a nice view, and read, sew, write, or whatever. It’s a wonderful place to do that, and even better when there’s a view.
Then there’s our usual haunts. We’ll go shopping up and down Duke St. We’ll visit St John’s Anglican where we’re tourist members (got a name badge and everything), and the Middleton Beach Cafe (which was disappointing the last time I was there, but I’ll throw that down to being a bad day). We’ll go visit the Valley of the Giants and walk around Denmark. If we’re feeling adventurous we might even walk from the bottom of Duke Street around the board walk to Middleton Beach. And we’ll probably visit the Whaling Station (for coffee only, don’t look around anymore) and definitely visit the Wind Farm.
So that’s my favourite road trip – the five-hour car ride to Albany. What’s your favourite road trip, and why?
Ben Clapton 