Albany’s weather has become cooler and the days getting shorter. It’s important to maintain our health and well being by remaining active. Walking is a great place to start if you haven’t been exercising much lately, or even if you want to try something new. Having a walk planned to do on a fine day will help get you out and enjoy the sun your body craves during winter.

As you may know, walking has many positive benefits. Some of them are

Improve posture
Increase heart and lung health
Relieve spinal stress
Boost energy levels
Improve memory
Increase Vit D levels
Bones and joints become stronger

For many parts of Albany and Great Southern, the change of season is brought to life through an array of autumn colours. Why not take your walk to the next level by visiting a beautiful local walking or hiking spots. We’ve created a list of walk that you can try and they are dog friendly too.

The Luke Penn walk is an easy to moderate level trail that offers great views while walking along the river. This is one of our favorite walks. See all the trees change from green to orange. It is graded as a Level 2 with a distance of 14.5km.

Our next suggestion is the Point Possession Heritage trail. You will need to drive to the start of the walk but the views it offers of Albany port and the channel are spectacular. Its graded as a level 3 and requires climbing up a steep rock face. This can become slippery when wet. There are ropes to help pull you up. You may even spot some dolphins or whales from lookout points along the trail.

If you are up for a challenge with your walking then try the Bald Head walk. Make sure you allow a full day for this grade 4, 12.5km walk. This hike is challenging but very achievable and will test your endurance for long walks. It has stunning views of the Southern Ocean and King George Sound to keep you motivated to see what’s over that next hill. Unfortunately pets are not allowed on this trail.