AN extraordinary rainbow pierces the dark sky, hovering over strangely sunlit golden wheatfields. Then another rainbow a full arc, its ends describing a half-circle that at first glance seems to contain all the rain in the universe.
And on the opposite side of the road, the setting sun looks like an egg with a radioactive yolk blazing from within its centre.
Im in the far south of the huge state of Western Australia. This region is, of course, in the same country as east coast Australia, but it feels like a completely different land. The soil is different. The sky is different, the brilliant turquoise sea is different, and the plants and animals are different.
And nowhere are these differences more apparent than in the Stirling Ranges, to the north of the city of Albany.
The pice de resistance of Stirling Ranges National Park is the 42km Stirling Range Drive, a gravel road through the spectacular Ranges. This Drive is at its best in spring but even now, in early summer, the wildflowers are exuberant in their abundance.
Kangaroo-paw flowers in half a dozen different shades, a host of other uniquely Western Australian flowering plants, and a vast profusion of grass-trees (xanthorrea) dot the landscape. In all, over 1,500 species of flora and 148 bird species can be found within the parks boundaries.
Just southwest of Stirling Ranges National Park, the Mount Barker-Porongorup district is one of Western Australias original wine-growing regions, producing wines long before Margaret River and other regions became fashionable.
Big, full-bodied shiraz and riesling styles are hallmarks of the region, which is one of five sub-regions in the Great Southern wine maxi-region (the others include Albany and Denmark). Right in town, Plantagenet Wines is the oldest of the local producers, with a superb pinot noir ranking amongst its best products.
Every October, the Qantas Wine Show of Western Australia, the states most prestigious wine show, features an international panel of judges who have to get their taste buds around more than 1,000 individual wines.
At Mt Romance Sandalwood Oil factory and showrooms (at Mirambeena Park, 14km north of Albany), a dedicated team are reviving an ancient industry. For over 200 years, collecting sandalwood was the province of a few hardy and stalwart individuals who roamed the outback of Western Australia, collecting branches from isolated stands of this fragrant timber for the export market. Only within the last 10 years has the industry become co-ordinated and sustainable, with plantations providing an ongoing source of sandalwood for oil distillation and the production of incense and other products.
The only big city in the Great Southern region is Albany Western Australias very first settlement. When Captain George Vancouver took possession of the area around what is today Albany (Western Australia) back in 1791, he named the port Princess Royal Harbour, to commemorate the birth of a daughter to King George III.
The name has stuck, and royal this harbour certainly is. Its huge sweep encompasses many bays and beaches including Emu Point, voted Western Australias cleanest beach at the 2011 Clean Beach Awards.
But surprisingly, Albany has only been a city since 1998 just 13 years ago. To the visitor, whats remarkable is that the move took so long. This funky yet surprisingly sophisticated waterfront metropolis, like a Southern Hemisphere version of Californias Sausalito, has for many years been a de facto city.
According to a local government spokesperson, the achievement of city status has been seen as a pilot by adjoining shires, with other city-aspiring towns like Denmark being eager to jump on the bandwagon. It seems now that there will be no holding back the rapid growth of Western Australias southern gateway.
Despite Vancouvers sighting in 1791, it wasnt until Christmas Day 1826 (35 years later) that the first British settlement on the Western side of Australia was officially established at Albany, when Major Edmund Lockyer stepped ashore from the brig Amity. The camp at what was initially called Frederickstown was little more an outpost of the Colony of NSW, a full two years before the establishment of the Swan River Colony (now Perth). The brig Amity has been restored, and now sits in pride of place at the entrance to the city, next to the Residency Museum.
Albanys main boulevard, Stirling Terrace, appears to have changed little in a hundred years. Here can be seen the fine old merchant houses, now converted into banks and offices, dating from the days when Albany was a prosperous whaling settlement. From the Terrace, the views over King George Sound are remarkable and behind Stirling Terrace, the quirky hillside city rises like a rickety house of cards.
The 1800s and early 1900s were a boom time for Albany. A huge whaling industry developed, and Albany became a major wool-selling centre. Then in 1978 the whaling station closed, and new methods of wool handling made it more profitable to centralise wool sales in Fremantle. It seemed for a while that Albany would become not a city but a ghost town.
But tourism came to the rescue. The old whaling station at Frenchmans Bay has been re-opened as a museum, and the city itself has become a focal point for exploring the attractions of a vast hinterland of mountains, karri forests, national parks and vineyards.
Whaleworld, 20 minutes drive from Albany by a scenic road along the shores of King Georges Sound, is a superb display of the old days of whaling. Even conservationists have praised this museum for its sensitive treatment of a subject that arouses conflicting views and feelings.
Exhibits include a display of sea mammals, both cetaceans (whales and dolphins) and pinipeds (seals and sea lions). In pride of place in the museum grounds is the restored whaling brig Cheyne IV.
I took a strenuous walk along the first hundred metres of the new 963km Bibbulman Walking Trail. Albany is the southern trackhead for this remarkable trail, which leads through scenic forest country all the way from Perth to Albany. All along the route, the trail is marked by the motif of the rainbow serpent Waugal.
Albanys setting and ambience draw settlers from across the globe. A popular eating establishment is Nonnas Restaurant (now officially Nonnas Cucina Bar & Forno), in a lavishly-restored, old terrace house, with an upstairs balcony area. The menu changes seasonally, specialising in local seafood. Try, for example, the Lamb Fillets in Balsamic Sugo, or the Baked Lemon Barramundi. For coffee or for drinks, you cant go past Libert Wine Bar and Coffee House, at the London Hotel, with its cool and cosmopolitan ambiance that has attracted rave reviews.
For something different, you can visit the sleepy little port of Denmark. It lies about 40 minutes by road west of Albany. The town is renowned for its arts and crafts, and is also getting something of a reputation as a healing centre.
Some of the healers put this down to the topography of the area, but as their modalities include such disciplines as quantum healing hypnosis, the visitor might feel inclined to take such claims with a certain degree of scepticism.
Nevertheless, surreal might be a good word to describe the south of Western Australia. The visitor comes expecting to find a string of sleepy little communities, and is instead blown away by a full-scale nature spectacle.
If it werent for the fact that travel writers cant keep secrets, Id say that Albany and its surrounding region is Australias best-kept secret.
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