We arrived in Geraldton a bit late having attempted to off-road on a beach and our 4wd setting broke in the so called “Beast”. We spent the whole day in the rain (on a bank holiday Sunday) trying to find someone who could sort it out, basically The Beast was stuck in 4wd and could not go above second gear. Eventually we found what I thought was a SAINT of a man who owned a garage and just so happened to be working on his own car when we rang. He fixed us up but we made the difficult decision to go back to Perth and get it fixed properly as we were unable to put The Beast back in 4wd…
One week on we were back on the road. We drove up as far as Lake Indoon which left a bit to the imagination as it was pretty polluted, stayed there for the night and then continued on to this walk we had heard about in a place called Cape Burney. It was just over a 10 mile walk and took us around 3 and a half hours. The walk took us along the banks of the river Greenough. As this is Australia and the rain water in the summer doesn’t keep the river topped up, therefore we were able to cross over the river and walk back on the other side. It was a really nice day so it made for a perfect free day out, and we also brought a little picnic so we could sit and eat during our day of exploration.
We then made our way to a little camp site called Oakabella Homested. We nearly got turned away from here as the weather was going to be torrential. I kid you not, the woman who owned the place told us her goat was restless and wouldn’t go inside so therefore there was a storm coming. And I shit you not, the heavens opened not a couple of hours later. Luckily there was an indoor place to cook in but one poor couple were in a tent for the night, nutters. The next morning we decided to head into the town known as Geraldton, we were rather sceptical about going back there due to our previous bad luck but we went anyway. We popped to the visitor centre (as we do in every place we go) and got some information about the town. We went to the HMAS Sydney II Memorial for a free talk at 10am with a delightful man who was clearly passionate about it. He showed us around and explained each element of the memorial created by the Smith Sculptors. The memorial was a credit to them with little hidden messages all around. The most amazing part is that their statue of the woman is looking out to the sea where the original ship sank.
We then made our way to the local museum and with a gold coin donation we were able to explore the museum as well as listen to a talk about the Batavia ship that had once sailed the Australian coast, we had previously visited the wreck in Fremantle near Perth city. For our last activity for the day, we popped over to the old Geraldton Gaol. In each cell, a little local artisan craft shop was set up. We stumbled upon one cell which had numerous figures of Australian native animals. On closer inspection we found that each of these animals were hand crafted by a 90-something year old man called Archie from tin cans. Even though he appeared shaky, each item was so perfectly crafted. We had to buy a souvenir, and obviously it had to be a kangaroo it cost a mere $10, which converts to 5 GBP,I thought this was a bargain! We named him Archie in memory of his creator. Other than the craft side of the gaol there wasn’t a huge amount of history found, but there was a very enthusiastic volunteer tour guide who was happy to show us around.
We packed up for the day and headed back towards our campsite before it once again got dark, Geraldton is a town full of character and small hidden gems, they just need to be discovered. Next stop, Kalbarri National Park.
#nursingthetravelbug 