New Years Eve was incredibly quiet here in Geraldton, the noisiest part was the trains going along the train line behind us. I was in bed well before midnight although Dave stayed up watching Battlestar Galactica episodes on the laptop with headphones so as not to disturb the rest of us!
We arrived in Geraldton around lunch time yesterday. We met our neighbours Terry and Dianne who are NSW'ers - the first NSW people we have seen for ages. They are a lovely couple and we spent an age chatting to them, they have been on the road for 8 months and had so many adventures and were so happy to share their stories and experiences with us.
No 7 day trading here and the shops will be shut for a couple of days so it was quickly off to the shops to restock the tiny fridge and get something nice for dinner...
Here we are celebrating New Years Eve with a delicious lamb roast!!
Today - New Years Day was off to a slow and quiet start, the town itself is like a ghost town. There is not a lot of sight seeing to be done so we set off quick to see what we could see. I'll try and keep it brief as its been a fairly busy day...
1st stop Cape Bernie - where the Greenough River meets the Indian Ocean only there is a big sand bar in between. Small amount of 4WD'ing required which was a bit of fun!
The leaning tree at Grenough - these trees grow this way as the southerly winds are so strong that they burn off the growth on the windward side - called flagging.
For those that ever wondered where hay came from read on, for everyone else skip to the next paragraph.....there are many grain fields out here - they grow wheat, oats, rye and luchin. You see many many fields with these huge rolls on them and we finally found out what they are - the farmers grow the grain and once the grain is ready to be harvested they harvest the head of it where the seed is. The seed is then stored in silos and transported where ever it is to be sent. The result of the harvest is a long stork with no seed head, the farmer then uses a machine to cut and roll the stork and wrap in plastic, these rolls are then stored for animal feed at a later stage. Often they are buried underground if the farmer doesn't have space to store them in a shed. The sheep are then brought onto the field to eat down the last of the stork so that the process can start all over again, its really very clever the whole crop is used.
Off to Flat Rocks - Dave was ever hopeful for a surf and Flat Rocks is one of the best know surf breaks on this part of the coast. Sadly for him it just wasn't happening today!!
Ellendale Pools was lovely for morning tea although not safe for swimming - when the water temp is over 24 degrees it can contain a bacteria that can cause a fatal type of meningitis. That didn't stop lots of others swimming but we decided it wasn't worth the risk - the water felt incredibly warm!
This afternoon we also visited the water park on the foreshore - the kids had a ball!!!
Walked the foreshore..
and visited the HMAS Sydney II War Memorial. Julia Gillard says this is the 2nd best War Memorial in Australia. It was nicely done. The memorial features 645 seagulls - one for each sailor who was lost in this wartime disaster. A pool of remembrance and a woman who gazes hopefully looking out to see awaiting news of her sailor. There is a nice view from the memorial overlooking town also.
There is a very funny talking toilet here also. You have to press a button on the outside for the door to unlock and open, it slides open like that of a space ship. Once your inside it slides shut and then a voice comes over and tells you that you have 10 minutes to complete your business and then elevator music starts playing. Toilet paper comes to you at a rate of knots at the push of a button and when your finished just shut the lid and wash your hands and it flushes itself. Press the button to open the door and then the toilet enters self cleaning mode ready for the next person - never experienced anything like it before - trust Dave to be ready with the camera when I walked out!!
Spent an age talking with Di (our neighbour) tonight and we have compared notes and shared all the tips and tricks for the next parts of our journeys. We are leaving Geraldton tomorrow (a day earlier than planned), we have done everything there is to do here, nothing is open again tomorrow and we are hoping to escape the south westerly wind that has been howling for days. Heading to Kalbarri and really looking forward to it.
We have sat down with the maps and re-made plans we now hope to go on to Coral Bay and Exmouth getting back just in time for school (fingers crossed Dave's boss won't mind and will give him and extra couple of days leave) . Just don't want this trip to end - loving every minute of it (however we are missing friends at home - Dave has been a little homesick today)
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