Torndirrup National Park

Torndirrup occupies the peninsula that shelters Albany's harbour, a block of granite and gneiss facing the full force of the Southern Ocean. At the Gap, waves surge into a vertical-sided chasm about twenty-five metres deep, watched from a steel viewing platform cantilevered out over the water and built after earlier visitors were swept off the rocks. The Natural Bridge nearby is a granite span left by the sea eating away beneath it. Elsewhere in the park are the Blowholes, where air is forced through cracks with a roar on a big swell, Salmon Holes beach, and Stony Hill, the peninsula's high point with views over the coast.

What you actually see

• The Gap - the chasm and the cantilevered platform above the surging water.
• The Natural Bridge - a granite span cut by the sea.
• The Blowholes - air and spray forced through cracks on a big swell.
• Salmon Holes and Stony Hill - the beach and lookout on the peninsula.

When to go

Year-round; the biggest seas and best displays come with winter swells, though the weather then is cold and wet. Summer is calmer and the Gap less dramatic. Whales pass offshore from June to October.

Honest expectations

People have been swept from the rocks at Salmon Holes and the Gap and killed; barriers and warnings exist for good reason and are ignored at real risk. Wind on the peninsula is constant and strong. The sites are drive-up viewpoints rather than long walks.

Nearby

Albany is fifteen minutes north; the whaling station museum is on the same peninsula.