While thinking we should be inland to get away from the
winds, there were still some interesting looking seaside villages that we just
had to see on the way. The coast road is
a beautiful drive as it follows close to the sea for most of the way and there
are always pure white sand dunes or waves to look at. From Geraldton we only made it 60kms or so
until we called through Dongara, the town, and detoured out to Port Denison,
the seaside village with its own harbour, and marina. The beachside parks are excellent with plenty
of good lawn grass, sun/wind shades on the beach, and good caravan parking off
the main street right next to the harbour beach. It really is a lovely peaceful spot for a
relaxing holiday. The lobster industry
is evident with cray boats and a large processing facility in the harbour but
the locals are mainly made up of wheat farmers and graziers holiday
shacks/homes. The beach is clean sand
and the water crystal clear of course.
We both commented that it would be a shame to ever get sick of seeing
the beautiful white sandy beaches and clean clear waters. The sand is hard enough to drive straight
onto the beach from the street to launch or retrieve your boat. We saw one RAV 4 owner drive onto the beach
and reverse all four wheels of the 2WD car into the water to load a large
boat. The rock walls of the harbour
protect the water so despite the strong winds outside, there are no waves
inside the harbour.
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| Launching a boat Port Denison style !! |
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| excellent seaside parks and grass |
Further south we
called into another village at Green Head.
There is a cute little bay that is protected from the winds and has a
lookout on the adjacent hill that gives great views of the bay and along the
coast. The grass beds are clearly
visible in the water but the beaches are mostly clean.
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| Green Heads |
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| The Pinnacles outside Cervantes - love the drive through attractions! |
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| Contrasting sand dune colours |
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| the big one |
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| The coastal dune colour |
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| Purpose built fishing pier at Jurien Bay. The caravan park is right behind the first trees |
Jurien Bay is the next seaside town to call us
and is the largest along this stretch of coast.
The van park is right on the beach next to a good waterfront picnic
park, kid’s playground, and purpose built fishing jetty. The supermarket/shopping centre is right
beside the park so the car had a bit of a rest.
Sunday was a big day as there was a Christmas Market on in the Community
Centre and we were up early to set up Carol’s stall. It was a good market for a small town and
while the crowds seemed small, sales were good and now Carol has to sew more
dresses etc, for the markets we have booked into in Perth next weekend; all
good fun.
Just south of Jurien Bay is another beautiful seaside
village of Cervantes, named after a Dutch ship that came to grief on the reef
close to shore and whose crew then walked for 11 days and 180kms along the
coast to reach Perth. Outside Cervantes
is a National Park containing the Pinnacles. These are an area of scrubby and
open sand dunes where the sand has blown away to reveal tall columns of
sandstone/limestone. Some of the area is
like a desert and elsewhere the columns appear throughout the scrub where the
sand has blown away and the bush has regrown.
We had read about them but were surprised by the number and area covered
by them.
Next we decided to try and get
a break from the coastal southerly’s and headed inland to New Norcia. This is a Spanish Style Monastery village set
up to assist the aborigines in the 1800’s and convert them to
Christianity. The founding Monk realised
that the Aborigines could not be removed entirely from their culture and while
training them in things like agriculture, and construction, allowed for them to
return to the bush to live among their own tribes people until they wanted to
return. Unfortunately, when the founding
Monk died in 1900, the Government (white people) decided they knew best and
incarceration commenced. The words used
at the time were:- ‘New Norcia was to
“absorb” local aborigines’ and subsequently, the aborigines from Perth and the
Swan Valley disappeared from their lands as white man’s agriculture and grazing
expanded.
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| There are still some impressive wild flowers out in December |
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| Very fancy picnic table for a little outback town |
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| New Norcia Monastery - only 8 monks remaining in residence.. |
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| An aboriginal married residence - a single room duplex |
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| The impressive 'white' girls convent |
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| Stunning chapels in the boarding schools |
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| Beautiful frescos on most walls of the chapels |
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| Another of the chapel altars |
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| The town church still in use |
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| A pretty local |
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| The hotel built for a visit by Queen Isobella II of Spain who unfortunately died before she made it out here. |
Further south there is more and more wheat fields. Most has been harvested but about 25% of the
wheat is still in too wet from recent unseasonal rain. Northam was our next stay and is a large town
on the Avon River and has a very flash Info Centre and Café beside the
river. It is a very busy country town
just like Emerald was before the mines came.
Surrounding Northam are several other country towns / villages all
maintaining strong links to their heritage.
Toodyay (2-jay) was the first of these we passed through. The buildings in the main street are very
well preserved and presented and the info centre is situated beside a very good
display of a flour mill. All of its
original milling machinery is still in place.
The info centre next door also doubles as the local chocolate and lolly
shop. We just had to take one small bag
of raspberry nougat. We will never know
if it might have got better with age!!
On the other side of Northam is York and Beverley. York was the first inland town settled in WA
and has a very impressive main street full of well preserved 1800’s
buildings. York also contains a very
impressive old mill building but this one contains a restaurant and furniture /
art gallery. The furniture is all made
by local tradesmen (artists) and the timber is all local, mainly jarrah. A dining table took our eye with the top made
from a slice of a single tree and is huge seating 12 to 16 adults. The wood workmanship was exceptionally good
and it retailed for only $15,500 – no chairs included but several styles to
choose from. York was also home to one
of the best Car Museums I have been through.
It is all indoors and privately owned and the owner has driven every car
in the Museum including the first car to travel at more than 100mph although he
said that when he drove it on a local salt lake he was shitting himself when he
got to 100kph. The 2 door A9X Torana was
a standout along with the hydrogen-peroxide fuelled go kart that set records in
the US at 404kph(253mph)!!
Beverley has a bunch of restored buildings from a later era
and many from the post war 1945 – 1960 style.
There is a very interesting display of farm machinery in a private
yard. Old mate that has collected all of
the items has lived in Beverley for all of his 78 years and has farm machinery
and shearing equipment from more than 100 years ago that his great grandfather
used. The display is very well organised
and is clean and tidy; not a shed full of old junk as many museums are. One item in particular is a horse drawn hay
mower that even has its original parts manual on display. He was full of stories and we were lucky to
escape inside an hour. Turns out that the museum wasn’t even open that day, he
was putting the wheelie bin out and saw us looking in so invited us in. It was a very interesting place and well
presented. Carol found a good old
fashioned haberdashery shop in town and purchased several hard to find
‘vintage’ buttons and ribbons.
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| Swinging bridge over the Avon River at Northam, white swans were floating nearby |
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Flour Mill Museum at Toodyay
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| York Courthouse |
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| Denis Fire Engine - note the solid wheels |
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| Rocket powered go kart capable of over 400kph |
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| Bill Hodgson A9X Bathurst Ch7 Torana |
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| York main street - Town Hall at left |
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| York Flour Mill now locally made Furniture Store |
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| Beverley Railway Station |
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| Hand powered shearers comb sharpener |
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| Rare Fordson Crawler Tractor - still goes.. |
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| Beverley icon |
Our run in to the outskirts of Perth and the
Swan Valley was very pretty. The bush
thickened up and the grass turned very lush and green as we came down the hill
into town. Being back in among heavy
traffic while towing a van was no more fun than the last time but the van park
we are at is very nice and the vineyards around us are full of thick green
growth and are very pretty after the last few months of rocks and desert in the
north west.
