In the March 2021 issue of Caravan World magazine, I recap my artful journey through the seaside town of Albany, Western Australia.

I was greeted with a mischievous grin by an unlikely city mascot. Albany’s newish landmark is hardly one to miss — a 35m-tall leafy sea dragon mural named Ruby hovering in the skies of Western Australia’s southernmost port city. 

The rare critter’s cartoonish striped body and fire-engine red trumpet-like nose is permanently swimming towards the town’s centre. 

This unique city welcome is splashed across four looming silos, breathing big, bold colours into Albany’s concentrated mish-mash of industrial and heritage buildings and broader natural splendour. This larger-than-life paint job, forming part of the illustrious PUBLIC Silo Art Trail, is probably the most tell-tale sign of a city undergoing a metamorphosis. Albany — most famously known for its initial European settlement, wartime and whaling history, and possibly lesser-known as the State’s initial earmarked capital — is headed in a new direction.

See more: Amazing Albany