31^st August: Geraldton

Being Sunday, we went to church but before we did we decided that as the Saturday markets were so poor, we would go to the unday markets at the Old Railway station. They were much better and in an hour I bought three lots of soap, some very large eggs, and some wine. (It has frustrated us that although wineries are even now advertised as being in the Chapman Valley, they are closed. There is no money to be had. So, a wine maker who had closed his winery some time ago was selling off his cellar. Some of the wine is quite old and should be good!)

Then we went to church at the Cathedral. Although it looks very modern in design,rather like Coventry Cathedral in England in some respects, it is 50 yrs old.We quickly noticed that this was to be a Morning Prayer worship with Sunday School for the children. The music was excellent and one interesting feature was the trolley with an urn and coffee making items out the front. The congregation were invited to get a coffee and drink it during the service and half way through when the children went to Sunday School, there was a pause for more coffee before the sermon! Innovative! Everyone sits on one side in front of the music and there are cushions to sit or lean on as well as knitted rugs at the end of the pews! It has the greenest carpet I have ever seen. (The colour of artificial grass.) I didn't take a photo of the Cathedral but will add it tomorrow. More coffee again after the service and lots of chat. The priest and the people were very welcoming  but addicted to coffee.

After that we came home and had a restful afternoon as it was officially a rest day. We did go for a walk on a near-by beach which was very pretty.Some youngsters were surfing and swimming but it is risky we are told – lots of sharks!

(Atrain beside us is moving slowly into a shed to unload iron – ore for export. Every few minutes, it moves and a loud ripple effect clatters along at regular intervals.)

30^th August: Geraldton

Saturday is market day in the park in town and none of us, except, Glen can resist a market. So we went up to the site which would be a great venue for markets. But, apparently, most had gone to the Mullewa one-day show and so there were only 5 stalls.We looked around, had coffee but no cake, and then went home!

The rest of the day which was windy and showery, was spent exploring Greenough and Port Denison further to the south. Greenough is an historic village, mostly not inhabitated any more although both the churches are used for worship services on a regular basis. Apparently, a devastating flood in 1888 caused the removal of the village to higher ground and while most buildings were first erected in 1860's, they were rebuilt up the hill after the flood. We were able to enter and exaamine both St Peter's Catholic and St catherine's Anglican churches as well as the old convent, the police station and jail, and various houses – all very solidly built of stone and all very well preserved.

The School:

 St Peter's Catholic Church

 St Catherine's Anglican Church

 St Catherine's Hall

A supercilious alpaca- one of 1/2 dozen keeping the grass mowed!

We moved on for lunch, observing the leaning trees and reserving those for when the showers had stopped. Lunch was on the waterfront of Port Denison – prawns, fresh bread and cold white wine. (I had wine and my diet drink! I am on a weight losing kick and have lost 10 kilos! Besides which, I can't eat prawns!) It looks a busy fishing port but as I had left my camera in Greenough, I haven't any photos. There are two rock walls now protecting the harbour but many ships have, over the years, come to grief on the bar at the entranceof the Leander River which has very rough surf.

Dongara, the nearby town, is noted for a Moreton Bay Fig lined main street. They are on both sides of the street and very old and large. They really seemed out of place!

We called in at Greenough on the way back to get my camera and then stopped at the leaning trees. River gums, they have been deformed by the salt-laden wind which blows constantly and lean over at various angles but always in the same direction.Some, as you can see in the photos touch the ground and grow horizontally.

April cooked dinner tonight and I have to wash my clothes beecause Gln knocked aglass of red wine over me!!

29^th August: Geraldton

Both cars were serviced today. Glen supplied his own oil and the guy doing the service spilt 2 litres of it (at $20 a litre) and then charged him for the 30 minutes labour it took to clean it up! Glen was not happy! He would have done it himself except he has nothing to drain the oil into and no where to dispose of the oil.

When ours was finished,we all took off for a day's driving. We went north to Northampton, calling in to look at Coronation Beach which has nothing but a little beach and a small number of caravans bush camping. Of course, we had to have a cup of coffee. I walked up the beach as I have no need of coffee every 2 hours! (We run on “Stomach time!”)

Northampton is an historic town, full of listed buildings. It was, and still is, the regional centre of a wheat area but because it is so close to Geraldton and since the railway was closed a long time ago, it has declined in prosperty to become a sleepy, country town. But, amongst other historic stone buildings, there are the catholic church,St Mary's in Ara Coeli and the Sacred Heart Convent,both designed by Monsignor Hawes and built in 1930's. (He was originally an Anglican architect who became a Catholic priest and designed and had built churches and convents throughout the mid-west. This includes St Francis Xavier Cathedral here in Geraldton.) The church in Northampton is still in use and the convent is a boarding house in front of a now enlarged and modernised school.

While we were there, we found a drapery and out the back she had  a collection of sewikng machines, mostly old singers, going back to the hand machines of the 1890's.  But there in the middle was my old Bernina 700 Record!  (An old machine? Well, I often forget that I bought it in 1969!)

 

We decided to go the long way to Mullewa – and it was a long way through wheat fields and scrub. By the time we got there, the two ladies in the back seat were food and coffee deprived! First stop, lunch! There was a Wildflower Show on which is why we were there. Glen was tired and stayed at the car, April and Gail breezed through and went to look at another Hawes church (which was very ornate in style) but I had a thorugh browse, despite the fact that I was disappointed there were only a few names on the flowers. There were a couple of massed displays which were lovely but the individual flowers in vases and bottles were mostly not identified. Apparently, they usually are but of the three old ladies who used to do it, one has died, one has Alziemers, and the other has moved away! So, I didn't actually learn more of the wildflowers and we didn't see many by the road either. But I did see Wreath Flowers which are scarce this year and grow 40 kms further west.

We came home by 4.30 so that Gail could pick up her car. (It was the90,000 service and it required a longer stay than ours!)

28^th August: Geraldton

April duly arrived this morning while I washed. (Tissue in the sheets and then a line broke spilling all my towels onto the ground! Grass not red dirt thank goodness!)

We visited the HMAS Sydney II Memorial first. There have been a number of them along the coast but this is the most spectacular and the most moving. (For those of you who don't know the story of the Sydney, she was a light destroyer returning from delivering troops up at the Sunda Straits when she came upon a strange merchant ship. As the Sydney approached to investigate, the disguise was dropped and the Kormoran, a german raider, opened fire. The Sydney burst into flames and sank as she burned with all 645 sailors perishing.The Kormoran was badly damaged and the captain sank it with their own bombs (they were laying them off the coast to disrupt shipping) and all but 90 of the crew survived in life boats. It was the worst naval disaster Australia ever experienced as, apparently this was 1/3 of the navy!)

The memorial is full of symbols: the curved black walls containing the names of all 645 men representing the open arms of all Australia waiting to welcome them home; the seven posts (the states) supporting a dome made of 645 seagulls soaring up to heaven (the souls of the dead men); the upturned propellors (a sign of a dead ship); the eternal flames above; the intricate patterned mosaic floor made of polished granite (representing the waves and the comings and goings of the Sydney.

Add to this the bronze statue of a woman gazing out to sea, symbolising all the women who waited anxiously for sons, husbands, fathers, brothers. (Ironically, although put there in 2001, she is gazing in the exact direction of the site of the wreck of the Sydney discovered in 2008!) There is a stele representing the bow of a ship, the same height as the Sydney's and , again ironically, it mirrors the shape of part of the wreck. Searchers found that the ship sank because the bow had been sheered off by torpedoes and went straight down to stand in the sand like an arrow, exactly like the stele (or standing stone)

Since we went last time, there is an addition, “celebrating” the discovery of the wreck in 2008. It isvery moving too. The leader of the search team (the one involved in the search for that Malaysian aircraft in the Indian Ocean somewhere) thoughty that if he could find the Kormoran, he would find the Sydney and, four days after he found the German ship, he found the Sydney. This new part of the memorial is, instead of reaching for the heavens, is sinking into the depths. Like the concentric circles and steps up around the dome symbolising the circle of life and death ,this is concentric circle of steps down to a base which s granite inlaid in the outline of the coast and sea arfound Shark Bay. 644 seagulls fly around the bottom step and the 645^th stans 2 metres high on its wing tip indicating the exact location of the wreck and so the bodies of the sailors. (The co-ordinates are written there.) A waterfall around the base symbolises the water eternally flowing over the wreck.

It is brillant and very moving. (We went on the guided tour. A Rotorian, the guide told lots of little stories related to the main one.)

While we were there, we watched another ship dock in the port. This is a very busy port but not as large as the others. However, as well as iron ore from the centre, they are also a wheat and other cereals export facility and there many large silos and sheds for storage of grain. The next crop is due for harvesting soon and they are hoping to clear out some of the sheds.

In the afternoon, we went to the Museum. They have a fantastic display on the wrecks along the coast including the story of the Batavia. Glen and I have seen this (when we were stranded in Geraldton when the cyclone redirected our cruise 10 yrs ago) and so we decided to pay to see the Leornado Da Vinci display. A young guy and his father in Italy have made working models of many of the machines Da Vinvi drew and they are on display as well as digital copies of some of his paintings. Replicas of many of his war machines are there as well as a coupleof this flying machines. But the most remarkable are the instruments he designed to lift materials more easily as well as digging machines, many of which are the basis of many machines today. He understood the pronciples related to the lever, the pulley, gears and corkscrew and used them extensively. A fascinating display.

This is the first mobile, armoured tank!  Designed to hold half a dozen men who worked the gears to move it, there was a turret which contained a number of canons that could shoot in all directions at once.

 

 The first bicycle with a flexible chain.

We cut short our visit here as I had appointments for hair and nails. All new again! But it does take time. Hopefully, they wiill last for 6 weeks until I get home!

27^th August: Geraldton

Well, we have reached “civilization”! Traffic lights, cars not 4WDs, shops (even a Spotlight!) and trains that shunt in the night. ( I failed to notice that there was a railway yard on the map beside this park!) But I can still hear the surf crashing onto the each with a constant roar!

As we didn't have to leave early, I had time to go for a walk on the beach to see the rising sun over the river mouth. I don't know how any boat gets out to sea. The bar looks very dangerous with the raging surrf that is normal. Thereare warnings on the jetties. But it was very pretty.

On the way down, we stopped at Rainbow Jugle Parrot Sanctuary to pick up a few items. There was Baz, the corella, running around the floor, lying upside down playing with a box and climbing everything in sight. Glen danced with him but he nipped my toes! A very social bird and our entertainment for the morning!!

We called in at Port Gregory – a pretty place with a protective reef behind which boats were moored. A fishing village, its one claim to fame is the Pink Lake, a salt lake that is truly pink. It is mined by BASF, not RioTinto, and so you are able to see it. (I think it would be impossible to hide it! All Rio's salt mines are closed to public access.)

We came straight in to Geraldton then, watching the changing vegetation, from coastal heath to taller, flowering Blakely's wattles and then taller gums and then wheatfields. The two cars are booked in for services and I have three appointments tomorrow. Gail knows the way to the airport to pick up April who arrives on Thursday. (This is why we cut out time in Kalbarri short. ) I had a long chat to Kylie (and Hannah): it's Ethan's anniversary tomorrow!

26^th August: Kalbarri

It is funny how some things from 37 years ago are very clear in my memory and some are not. I remember the inland gorges very well but the coast line not at all and yet I am sure we visited both. Maybe it is because the inland often appears in photographs and the coast doesn't. Yet it is the coastline that has impressed me this time.

We set off early andwent out to the gorges. We arrived just after a group of rangers and we followed them all the way through the NP. That was interesting as one seemed to be informing the other 3 about the park. So we learnt a lot such as which animals were there, what the predators are, which animals had been reintroduced once the numbers of predators have been decreased and which reintroductions had been successful. They are still working on the rock wallabies but foxes are a real problem despite a vigorous baiting program. Wild pigs are regularly hunted by helicopter and shot as they causee enormous damage to the river bed and cats are baited but they are difficult as they are clever. (You can't hide a tablet in a cat's food: they eat around it!) We saw the footprints of the ancient animal, the eurypretid, and heard about a stupid bus driver who photographed his passengers standing on top of the Nature's Window which is actually very fragile! Hence, all the signs re cliff safety!!

 

The Murchison has, over the millions of years, carved deep gorges through the old banded and predominantly red sandstone and the scenery is spectacular. We did lots of walking down and up gorges and revisited sites I remember well. I had forgotten how far it was between each feature but we made iot longer by stopping to identify flowers. The wildflowers are just coming out! (Consequently, as well as 60 photos of birds and a hundred of dolphins, I have 150 photos of flowers! I will spare you!)

 Nature's Window

 Hawk's Head

We came home for lunch and then drove to the coastal gorges where the sandstone is overlaid by a thick layer of limestone. It is very reminscent of the Port Cambell NP in south-west Victoria. There are only a few features, a bridge and a stack, but the cliffs are magnificent and I could watch the sea for hours. The big swells came rolling in and crashed as thunderous waves onto the coastline, spraying up and dying in a mass of white wash. A wonderful sight! (And so I have dozens of photos of waves!! Much culling to do when I go home!) These huge seas have created the coastline because the cliffs are actually quite fragile as rocks go. It is no wonder all those Dutch ships were wrecked on this coast. It is actually very inhospitable. Even the mouth of the Murchison is difficult although pictoresque.

Photos are a little hazybecause of the spray!

We leave tomorrow, A pity really as this too is a lovely town and we haven't had time to enjoy it fully as April arrives in Geraldton on Thursday. This caravan park is very pleasant. Lots of trees and irregular roads and sites; no wind despite the strong westerlies out on the coast yet we are only a two minute walk from the beach; relatively inexpensive but with great facilities! A block of individual bathrooms, with toilet, hand basin and a curtained shower. Probably the best I have ever been in!!

It is odd how many of these towns don 't have banks! What ATMs there are are often out of money! And the IGA doesn't give you cash! A problem really!

25^th August: Kalbarri

We all felt a bit regretful leaving Shark Bay. We loved it and would go back again if the chance arose! A lovely place!!

On the way, we decided to returned to Hamelin Pool to see the Stromatolites at low tide. I was able to get some better photos.

An individual stromatolite:

The Microbial Mat

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As we drove southwards today, the vegetation became taller – a sign that there is more rain here. But there were patches of absolute devastation: probably bushfire. Yellow sand with a few blackened tree skeletons. Awful! But wheat fields also started to appear. They are looking a bit stressed, crying out for some rain too!

We had lunch at the Murchison River Crossing. What a great Rest Area! I counted nearly 30 vans there!

Once again, I am glad I have booked. Parks are turning away vans! But this is a nice shady place and we can hear the surf crashing on the beach close by. As soon as we had set up camp, we went to Rainbow Jungle to see the amazing display of parrots. I have never seen so many different parrots – almost all Australian! They were all beautiful from the black cockatoos to the Goulian Finches,many of them extremely colourful. A large number were in pairs in very large avairies for breeding, especially the endangered species, and many more were free range in a huge walk-through netted enclosure. We spent 2 hours walking through and talking to the birds and I have seen parrots I have only read about or never knew about! (Just as I have 50 photos of dolphins, I have lots of photos of parrots! I won't inflict them all on you!)

I am ambivalent about birds in cages as large as they are, especially the big cockatoos. They seem desperate for company and love human contact. They talk, dance and squark but they also bite – hard! The little birds seem happy but the big ones look depressed. I felt a bit sad. But, I did learn that some ignorant do-gooders had released some Rainbow Lorrikeets near Perth and that has been an environmental disaster. They are Eastern Australian birds and here they have been able to take over in pest proportions by invading many of the breeding places.

A King Parrot and his shy mate.

This is one of 4 Sun Conuresfrom South Ameerica.  At $8000 a pair, they have been a breeding failure.  The eggs are unfertilised.  Beautiful birds!

Tomorrow, we will investigate the gorges.

24^th August: Denham

After yesterday, today was a bit of an anti-climax. The wind which blows here every night had dropped by 3.am and the day was lovely. In winter, the climate here is great! (The skipper yesterday told Glen that he sails every day of the year!)

We decided to go up to the Old Homestead of the Peron sheep property. The whole of the peninsular from Denham north is a National Park,declared in 1993, the Francois Peron NP, named after the zoologist on a French boat that came here in 1801 and 1803. (He documented information on anthropology, oceanology, zoology, and meteorology.) It became a 100,000 hectare sheep station until 1990 when it was purchased by the government. Originally managed from Denham, the owner shifted operations out as he couldn't keep the shearers out of the pub! It was marginal country with no ground water and had to rely on salty bore water which comes out of the ground at 40 C. There is a spa bath there but at that temperature, the visitor is warned not to stay in too long lest he comes out like a lobster! The old shearing shed still stands as do many of the other buildings and throughout there are interpretative signs.

Now, with an electrified fence across the narrowest part of the peninsulaar some 60 km sto the south, there is a very real effort being made to rid the area of foxes and feral cats through a baiting campaign. Called Project Eden, many of the original species have been bred in captivity and released here to repopulate the area, including the Bilby, the Mallee Fowl and various little Australian marsupials. It has been very successful.

We had lunch at a local resort here overlooking the sea and walked home. Gail went fishing again and caught a legal sized parrot fish which she ate for tea.

This is one of 3 rather elaborate fish cleaning tables which underscores the role of fishing in Denham.  I counted nearly 30 boat trailers there today and that's not the commercial operators!

The stainless steel tables have running water, a scrubbibg brush and rubbish bins with a roof overhead.  All very fancy!  

 

Tomorrow, we move on to Kalbarri for a couple of days. I'm looking forward to seeing those redd gorges and spectacular scenery again.

23^rd August: Denham

What a magical day! We finally made it to Monkey Mia! 

 

(I say “finally”, as this is the third attempt. When we first came this way, all roads were unsealed in various states and we had rebroken a spring on the van coming out from Tom Price. Once again, Glen had welded it up in Karratha but it was breaking again and 200 extra miles on rough dirt was too much to contemplate! Then we were a cruise which was supposd to come into Shark Bay. Well, a cyclone put that out of the question. Third time lucky!)

So we left at 7.15 am to be in time to feed the dolphins. The beach at Monkey Mia is glorious – white sand and clear, green to blue water. We kicked our shoes off and joined the 100+ people listening to the Parks and Wildlife briefing. Then down on the water's edge we waited for the dolphins to decide it was breakfast time. They only feed the adult females as the males become very aggressive and even dangerous. The babies stay in deeper water as they can't suckle in the shallows. So they come and play in the shallows for ½ hour , then they are fed and when the buckets are washed out, the dolphins know it is time to leave. Each dolphin gets only 4 or 5 fish (500gms) as they monitor very carefully how much they are fed to ensure they still need to fish. It is all highly organised as volunteers bring down the buckets carrying the fish, the number according to how many dolphins arrive, and select individuals from the crowd to give a dolphin a fish. Both Gail and Glen were chosen and I went with Gail. Wecouldn't believe our luck! It was all over in a few minutes as each feed lasts only seconds.

They have managed this process for many years this way as they found with the old casual unregulated feeding, the suckling mums would stay in the shallows, not feed their pups and not teach them survival skills. Many pups died. (One dolphin lost 7 in a row and only now has had 2 live offspring.) It was great fun and they are such gentle, intelligent creatures.

There was a second feeding session and one dolphin was “herding” the ranger: she wouldn't let her walk down the beach past a certain point. But the funniest thing that happened was back on the sand up the beach. A ranger was standing up the top with a yellow bucket to distract the two large pelicans which figured they could get an easy meal. Well, the resident emu obviously doesn't like pelicans and ran aggressively at them, neck stretched out, and chased them away and when they came back, it took after them again! Unfortunately, I was too slow to take a photo but it was funny!!

After a while we had lunch under a shelter on the beach with a bottle of wine. Such a hard life!! We were booked on a wildlife cruise on the “Shotover”, a racing cataraman, 18 metres long and 9 metres wide. (Twice as wide as Glen's boat is long!) 

What a beautiful boat and reputed to be very fast. Unfortunately, it was so calm going out that the motor had to be used but coming back, we sailed silently along looking for animals. We saw dolphins, rays and turtles but no dugong. I have yet to see a dugong. They are there as their poo was there but they are very elusive! Frankly, Glen and I didn't care if we hadn't seen anything. It was just a joy to be on the water on such a beautiful day on such a great boat!

We were late back but we were allowed 15 mins to go to the car to get changed into warmer clothes(fortunately therewas no-one in the carpark as that was where we changed!), collect our drinkies and nibbles and run back to the boat as we had also booked for the sunset cruise. The breeze had strengthen enough for us to sail and as there was no set destinaton, it was very relaxed and totally enjoyable. As there wasnot a cloud in the sky, the sunset was not spectacular but again, I didn't care. It was just so beautiful. 

We had bubbles and nibbles as the boat slid silently through the water.

Glen spent the return journey chatting with the skipper who owned the boat. He and his sons used to  sail Windrushes on Lake Cootharaba and they talked about sailing in general. We drove home slowing (in deference to the wildlife) in the gathering dark. What a wonderful, amazing day!!

22^nd August: Denham

Rain has gone - just a distant memory. Clear skies and gentle breeze which becomes stronger at night. We are a bit exposed in our little corner and Glen has had to put the deflappers on the annexes.

Today, we visited the places we had driven past on the way in, Goulet and Eagle Bluffs, Shell Beach and Nanga Bay. The two bluffs gave a great view of the Henri Frechinet Bay and we could see how extensive the seagrass meadows are. One of the largest areas in the world, theses banks are the main reason Shark Bay (of which Henri Freycinet Bay is part) has World Heritage status. This is the home base of a large number of dugong colonies and dugongs are a threatened species. These and the Moreton Bay Dugongs are the last big colonies left in the world and so are highly protected as are their seagrass habitats. In the photographs, they are the dark areas and they tend to grow seaward, leaving bare sand behind. Here all sorts of fish, sharks and turtles also breed and feed in the seagrass.(Seagrass is not seaweed; it is an underwater grass which tolerates the highly saline environment. In fact, they contribute to it by trapping sand and allowing water to flow into places like Hamelin Pool but not out. It is a very interesting place!)

The dark patches are seagrass.

Goulet Bluff has a board walk (made of recycled plastic) high above the water and the clear sandy waters before the sea grass can be clearly viewed, I saw a turtle and we saw a pair of young sharks swimming about in the shallows. It was too high to see fish! The water is so clear! As I explained to one man who was musing about it, it is because there are virtually no rivers emptying silt into the coastal waters and what rivers there are, flood only infrequently.

We left the chilly wind and turned eastward into Shell Beach. This is where billions of cockle shells have piled up over millions of years. The animal that inhabits the shell, flagum erugatum, loves the highly saline waters. (It has a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria that lives in its shell and neutralises the salt!) There are no predators and so they are profuse! Again, there is shell block mining. The beach is nearly 200 metres wide and the shells have beeen pushed up into dunes about a metre high by very strong storm waves. The water is weedy and, of course, very salty. Not a tree to be seen, just low scrubby mulga and acacias that cast no shade and that one could not sit under. There was no where to sit and have lunch and so we moved on.

 The shell dunes:

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 This is St Andrew by the Sea Anglican Church made with shell blocks over 100 years ago.

A close up of the blocks.  The inside smelt very musty!

The last stop was Nanga Station on Nanga Bay. It was a sheep station but now is a resort. Sealed road wound out to it and so there were vans there. But to get to the bay, we had to drive right through the resort and stop on the hard packed shelly beach where there were acouple of shelters aand tables. There was a boat ramp of sorts; we saw one van back up and brake qquickly so that the boat flew off the trailer backwards into the water – not a safe way to launch a boat!!

We came home, buying a pack of whiting from the Fish Factory. So wehad crumbed whiting for dinner. (I dropped a piece on the ground, hard backed shells, and itwas a bit gritty!) Gail went fishing off the jetty, catching only small ones and throwing them back while we went for a walk. There is an old boat down there called the “Galli Curchi” who was an Italian soprana who visited in the 1920's. Mum used to have records of her and we all gre up listening to her. The boat is an odd shape: very long, extendd deck used for dredging first and then fishing. It is about 100 years old!