The reason I am lumping these two towns into one post is because I didn't really spend much time in either. After I left Exmouth I headed south towards Carnarvon, with a quick 20 km detour to have a look at Coral Bay. If you are only interested in the Ningaloo Reef and not the rest of the North West Cape, then Coral Bay would be a good place for you to stay. It is purely a tourist town, with lots of accommodation along a beautiful bay on the western side of the cape. The bay was reminiscent of Turquoise Bay, where I snorkelled during the days before. I only stopped long enough to have a bit of a look around and take a picture or two, then I kept driving. During my drive I listened to ABC MW radio (as most days) and they transmitted the memorial service for Gough Whitlam from the Sydney Town Hall. I found all the eulogies very poignant and moving, but Noel Pearson's stood out for his beautiful use of language.
I got to Carnarvon just after lunch. The town is in the delta of the Gascoyne River and driving into it you pass vast banana and tomato gardens. Then you see a large satellite dish that is a leftover from a space tracking station that was used for the Apollo project by NASA. It was decommissioned back in the eighties, but since 2012 houses The Carnarvon Technology and Space Museum. The town itself lies on an arm of the river, with the waterfront recently renovated, home to a promenade, a park and some very expensive looking waterfront properties. I had a very good cappuccino at the Port Hotel in the main street, followed by a haircut across the road. Afterwards I went for a walk across the old tramway bridge, which leads across the river and then out to the one mile jetty, another Carnarvon attraction. The jetty is 200 metres short of a mile, but that is still very far out into the sea. It has been built a long time ago and some parts of it appeared in dire need of repair. I paid the $5 jetty fee and walked out on it. Unfortunately the part where it widens up at the end was closed off because of disrepair, which means that you probably only get 1.2 km out from the shore. There were a couple of people fishing, but I didn't see them catch anything large. Later when I spoke to a maintenance bloke in the place where I stayed he said that "if it is on" you can catch large tuna from the jetty.
While I was sitting out on the jetty watching the fishermen two more people walked out. To my surprise it was the French backpacker that I asked for a picture of the emus bathing in Turquoise Bay a couple of day before and one of her travelling friends from Germany. We spent a pleasant half an hour or so comparing travel notes before heading back to shore. Perhaps our chances of getting the picture have increased...
The next morning I kept going towards Geraldton, where I had a booking to get my car serviced. I have driven 13,500 km since I picked it up on the 17th of September and it started telling me that it needs an oil change. I was surprised how arid and flat the landscape was on this part of the drive. I thought that once I crossed the tropics of Capricorn it would gradually start getting greener - but no so. Only once I got to about 100 km north of Geraldton did it get a bit more hilly and some gum trees started to appear. Then the road was suddenly surrounded by vast wheat fields and I got to a town called Northampton, with a large mill about half an hour north of Geraldton.
Gerladton is fairly sizeable with a population of about 35,000 and a busy port. On the afternoon I got there I completely unloaded my car, getting ready for its service. Unfortunately taking out all my stuff showed me all the dust, sand and dead insects that I accumulated over the past 8 weeks and I was too embarrassed to take it to the garage in that state. I found a car wash in town and gave it a clean and a vacuum, while at the same time getting a bit of an idea of the layout of the town.
After I dropped off the car in the morning I walked the three kilometres from the garage into town. The weather was very pleasantly cool, only just about 20 degrees, which was a big change from the constant high thirties over the past few weeks. I actually quite liked the town centre of Geraldton. It has a shopping street called Marine Terrace and a nicely done up foreshore, which at one end is dominated by the port, with its large storage buildings and at the other end by a newly developed marina. There is a marked walking trails that highlights some of the historic buildings along the way and explains the history of the town. I spent some time sitting on the dock of the bay, watching a cargo ship being manoeuvred out of port by two tug boats and some surfers that took advantage of a break that was only about 3 metres wide, right along one of the breakwaters in the port.
After lunch I went to the Western Australia Museum, which is right at the waterfront in the new marina precinct. It has various exhibits, explaining the geological history of WA, the development of Geraldton, the cultural changes as well as the history of the Abrolhos islands, which are about eighty km due west of Geraldton. You can easily spend a couple of hours in the museum. Two separate sections are dedicated to ship disasters. The larger one is dominated by the sinking of the Dutch vessels Batavia back in 1629 and Zeewjik in 1727. These ships were owned by the Dutch East India Company and were on their way to Batavia, nowadays known as Jakarta. By sailing straight east from the cape of good hope, rather than heading north along the coast of Africa they took advantage of the prevailing westerly winds for longer and could cut the travel time in half. Unfortunately if they overshot the turn off they got close to the Australian coast and its reefs. The story of the Batavia is fascinating because after its sinking a party under the command of their chief merchant headed 1500 nautical miles to Jakarta in a very small longboat, while the rest of the survivors stayed behind and killed many of each other before the rescue party returned.
Another section of the museum is dedicated to the sinking of HMAS Sydney (II) in the second world war. It was a very successful battle ship of the Australian Navy until it had an encounter with the German Raider HSK Kormoran. Their battle only lasted about 15 minutes, but rendered both ships unusable. While the German vessel could evacuate its crew the HMAS Sydney sailed off never to be seen again. As a matter of fact the wreck wasn't discovered until just a few years ago. All 645 souls on board perished. There is a hill just above the town centre of Geraldton that hosts the HMAS Sydney Memorial with tasteful sculptures and a large memorial wall with all the names of the crew engraved, surrounded by beautiful plantings. There is also a good view of the town from the memorial.
Now that my car is serviced I will continue my journey onto Perth tomorrow and will post my next report from there in a few days time.
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| Coral Bay |
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| Jetty as far as the eye can see |
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| That part was closed off, not surprising |
While I was sitting out on the jetty watching the fishermen two more people walked out. To my surprise it was the French backpacker that I asked for a picture of the emus bathing in Turquoise Bay a couple of day before and one of her travelling friends from Germany. We spent a pleasant half an hour or so comparing travel notes before heading back to shore. Perhaps our chances of getting the picture have increased...
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| The "emu photographer" |
Gerladton is fairly sizeable with a population of about 35,000 and a busy port. On the afternoon I got there I completely unloaded my car, getting ready for its service. Unfortunately taking out all my stuff showed me all the dust, sand and dead insects that I accumulated over the past 8 weeks and I was too embarrassed to take it to the garage in that state. I found a car wash in town and gave it a clean and a vacuum, while at the same time getting a bit of an idea of the layout of the town.
After I dropped off the car in the morning I walked the three kilometres from the garage into town. The weather was very pleasantly cool, only just about 20 degrees, which was a big change from the constant high thirties over the past few weeks. I actually quite liked the town centre of Geraldton. It has a shopping street called Marine Terrace and a nicely done up foreshore, which at one end is dominated by the port, with its large storage buildings and at the other end by a newly developed marina. There is a marked walking trails that highlights some of the historic buildings along the way and explains the history of the town. I spent some time sitting on the dock of the bay, watching a cargo ship being manoeuvred out of port by two tug boats and some surfers that took advantage of a break that was only about 3 metres wide, right along one of the breakwaters in the port.
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| Having a tug |
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| Surfing Geraldton Port |
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| Replica of the longboat they sailed to Jakarta |
Another section of the museum is dedicated to the sinking of HMAS Sydney (II) in the second world war. It was a very successful battle ship of the Australian Navy until it had an encounter with the German Raider HSK Kormoran. Their battle only lasted about 15 minutes, but rendered both ships unusable. While the German vessel could evacuate its crew the HMAS Sydney sailed off never to be seen again. As a matter of fact the wreck wasn't discovered until just a few years ago. All 645 souls on board perished. There is a hill just above the town centre of Geraldton that hosts the HMAS Sydney Memorial with tasteful sculptures and a large memorial wall with all the names of the crew engraved, surrounded by beautiful plantings. There is also a good view of the town from the memorial.
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| Dome of 645 seagulls on the HMAS Sydney Memorial |
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| View over Geraldton from the Memorial |
Now that my car is serviced I will continue my journey onto Perth tomorrow and will post my next report from there in a few days time.
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