Fremantle

Today we visited Fremantle.

This is a lovely old town, with heaps of older buildings and little terrace houses that were probably here when my Grandma arrived off a ship from Hobart in the 1930s to get married to my grandpa.  Just south of Perth, on the ocean, it feels like a part of Perth.  We had a fun day, wandering around trying to work out what it might have felt like back in the 'old day's.

We visited the shipwreck gallery of the maritime museum and read more information about the Batavia shipwreck and how they found it and recovered it.

They also had a stone portico on display, a replica of the one in Geraldton, that was recovered from the wreck of the Batavia.

 

 

We walked to the Fremantle jail, which was built by convicts in the 1850s and was still operating up until the 1990s. 

 

It has some of the smallest jail cells in the world at 4 by 7 feet.  In the 1850s the convicts dug a series of tunnels and reservoirs under the ground in the limestone to get the water out of the aquifer for the people of Fremantle to use.  Fresh water seems to have been and still is a big problem in WA.  You can go on tours of the tunnels under the prison, but you have to dress in big waterproof suits, galoshes, and a harness as you climb down 20 foot ladders, walk through the water in the tunnels, and paddle in boats along the bottom.

We also visited the main maritime museum. 

      

This museum holds the Australia II, the first non-American sailboat to win the America's cup and wrest the big silver trophy off the Americans since the race's inception 132 years before.  

It was very interesting reading about the secrecy surrounding the development of the new keel, and the type of sail they used.  We only won it the once, though.  the Americans came and won it back the next time.

Outside there was a big submarine, black, and towering over the wharf.  We watched a video on how it worked and what it was like to live in, and it looked ten times worse to squish into than a caravan.  they kept talking about how out of date it was and how they were looking forward to the arrival of the Collins class submarines....well that was a bit of a fizzer.  I don't think Australia has any submarines operational at the moment.

The highlight was our visit to Hungry Jacks...Grant had found some great shop-a-dockets and we had to use them up.  One thing about lunching in Hungry Jacks, you have a toilet right there you can use.  Unfortunately, there was only one in this particular Hungry Jacks, and Cooper, Nadine and I all squeezed in.  First we let Cooper out, and once we'd locked the door I heard someone trying to get in.  Then I let Nadine out, and locked the door again, and this time the person tried again, then hammered on the door.  Poor things.  Once I got out a young girl made a desperate rush for the door.  Hopefully she was in time...

On our way back to the car, we looked at the replica of the Endeavor, Captain Cook's ship docked at the wharf next to the museum.(Based in Sydney it is doing a circumnavigating Australia Trip – GW)  The thought of sailing around the world in that little thing is very scary.

We had a lovely day, and the kids had another great play with their new friends when we got back to the campground.

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Vicki

Grant’s turn for a rest

The big highlight of today was my visit to the dentist.  Yes, it was another slow day.

We had all sorts of plans, but it was Grant's turn to have a rest, so after the dentist we came back to the van for another lazy afternoon.  The children didn't mind, they had a great time playing with their new friends.

After dinner we drove to the Kalamunda National Park around the corner, and watched the sun set over Perth, and walked down a few tracks.  It was a very pretty area.

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Vicki

The real rest day

Today we rested.  Well, I rested.  I needed a day not going anywhere or doing anything.  I was pooped, but I feel a lot better this evening.
It was windy and cold all day, and then this afternoon it rained just a little.  We are all in jeans and jumpers.  What a huge change to just a few days ago.
Grant took the car to a car wash this morning, and the outside now looks sparkling again, not red dirt streaked like it was.
Our boys had a good time this afternoon playing with the boys of a family staying a few vans along.  They are from Tasmania and Joseph, Dominic and Oskar are having a good time playing frisbee, basketball, and just running around with their three boys.  Their little girl enjoys playing with Cooper.  Our boys want to stay here now, just to play with their new friends.
Grant made his famous custard again after dinner.  yumm.
Have to pull myself together tomorrow.  Still a lot we want to see in Perth.
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Vicki

Rest day, sort of

Church today at the Maida Vale Baptist church.  Lots of hymns.  They are preparing for a Christmas fair that they have put on for the community for about four years now.  Before that they used to hold carols, but decided there was no connection with the community and now coordinate the fair, getting local schools and other organisations involved.  It sounded like a great idea.
We met a man who has a sister or cousin or something at Moore Park Baptist church where I grew up.  It's a small world.
Nadine, Oskar and Cooper enjoyed Sunday school, with the little boy who wouldn't get out from under the table, and the little girl who wouldn't get off the chair and sit on the floor like everyone else.  Sunday school is the same where ever you go!
I spoke to Richard who spent a number of years as Pastor of Carnarvon Baptist church (which no longer exists) and his two sons went to school there.  The elder one has since become a chaplain in the prison system here, and regularly finds his old school mates in prison.  I doubt he had any idea while he was at school that God was preparing him for this!
This morning I read in Exodus how God wanted the Israelites to construct the Tabernacle, or the tent where they would meet with God and offer sacrifices to Him.  There was a lot of Gold in the design: gold covering frames, gold over alters and tables and candlesticks.  there was a holy oil only to be used for holy things which contained myrrh, and an incense for burning at the entrance to the tent, not to be used for private purposes, and it contained frankincense.  I'd never noticed before, but they were the three gifts the wise men brought to Jesus; gold, frankincense and myrrh.  An indication, perhaps, that he was the new tabernacle of God...I thought it was interesting.
Lunch and a bit of a rest, then we headed over to Mr and Mrs Chris' house, whom we had met at Yardie creek Homestead on Cape Range.  They cooked us a lovely chicken dinner, with the chicken sitting in beer cans in the BBQ. It looked like they  were having a good old chat when Chris lifted the lid!
We met their daughter and granddaughter, and also their very cute puppy, a new addition of a week, a cross between a schnauzer and a West Highland Terrier.  She was still without a name, but lots of fun for all the kids. 
We had a nice chat and came home to drop into bed.  It was a big day.  Cold and windy.
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Vicki

Perth

Today we caught the train into The city of Perth and visited the Mint and Museum and caught a ferry across the Swan River.
The Perth Mint is the oldest working mint in Australia and we took a tour which, among other things, talked about  the first gold discovery in Western Australia, something Dominic studied last term at school.  The mint was opened in 1899 as one of only 6 branches of the Royal mint, London in the world.   We saw the biggest bullion coin in the world - 1 tonne,  watched a gold pouring demonstration, and minted our own coin.  We also saw some incredibly expensive diamonds!   The combined value of our family's weight in gold worked out at around $12 million dollars.  There was a gold bar about the size of a brick weighing over twelve kilograms that we could barely lift, and the second largest gold nugget in the world.  We really enjoyed the mint, and the building was one of the many beautiful old buildings in Perth.
Next we trekked across the city to the museum.  The children all enjoyed the music garden outside first, with Cooper visiting  each glockenspiel many times.  Inside, there was a visiting exhibition  from the British Museum with some significant artifacts from the world's history. (well, someone deemed them significant, anyway). I particularly liked the golden Celtic torc (collar) that a farmer in England dug up with his tractor, and an old chess piece, a Queen, found in Scotland.  The Queen is sitting in a chair with her chin resting in her hand, contemplating the game before her.  The sign explained that the game originated in India where there was a King piece and his accompanying Vizier, no queen.   So when the game moved to England, and the vizier became the queen, she was quite a powerless piece, only being permitted to move one diagonal space in any direction.  Of course now she is the most powerful piece on the board....hmmmmm.
The other thing Grant and I found significant in the special exhibition was their use of the common era to date artifacts.  For example, the torc was dated as 75 - 145 BCE, before common era, rather than BC, before Christ.  If we are determined to remove all mention of deities etc from our calendar or dating system, we should probably also rename the days of the week.
In the main part of the museum, we saw a huge egg from the extinct Madagascar elephant bird.  No idea what the bird looks like, but it's egg is equivalent to 134 chicken eggs!  This particular one was found on the coast of Western Australia at Cervantes, near the pinnacles, and they assume it floated across the sea to there.  The bird itself has been extinct for 300 - 400 years.
Upstairs we saw lots of meteorites and now Grant wants to find a metallic one on the Nullarbor.  They had slices out of a lot of metllic meteorites from around the world, and they were all silver and shiny.
We found the discovery centre in the museum on our way out, which is particularly aimed at kids, and there were aquariums with frogs, snakes, insects and lizards.  The kids all settled down on the leather couch to watch a video on animals deep in the sea, and rest their feet from all the walking.
Back out in the cold wind, we walked down to The ferry and caught it across the Swan river and back.  Near  the wharf was a very cool looking bell tower.  We also saw a couple of black swans. 
Bus back to the city, MacDonald's for dinner, and finally home again on the train.  Katie was exhausted, as we all were, but it was still a great day.  Had some great praise music from the aboriginal conference to go to sleep to!
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Vicki

All together again

We got Katie!  Everyone was so excited.  She's really tired, but well.  Thank you to everyone who took such good care of her for us.
We were up and away this morning as soon as the kookaburra laughed, keen to get in to Perth, but also aware that we could only get into the caravan park if we arrived before 10am.  We are staying at Advent Park, a seventh day Adventist caravan park here in Perth, and quite close to the airport.
Driving in to Perth there was lots of traffic, a train driving down the centre of the freeway, and signs everywhere.  Not what we've been used to at all!
We finally arrived at the campsite, set up, did four loads of washing, and went and did the groceries up the road.
There is an Aboriginal Christian conference here for the weekend and we can hear their great singing!  What a bonus.  I think they have some islander people with them too.
Getting Katie at the airport we got a little lost trying to work out which arrival lounge she was in, and then she snuck in down a back stairway to the luggage carousel.  She must have thought we'd forgotten her when Dominic spotted her and we all ran over and welcomed her here.  We're very glad she's back.
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Vicki

Pinnacles

We left from sandy beach at a good time this morning.  I had a nice walk along the beach and up to a lookout on the Headland early this morning.  It looked like there were lots of reefs in the bay and it would probably have been good to snorkel, but the wind had picked up again.  It seems to be strong in the mornings.
On my walk I met a Bernese sheep dog named Cooper.  He was five years old and loved a scratch behind the ears.
We packed up, tipped out sand from the shoes, and drove off.  Grant really enjoys leaving the car hooked up to the van overnight, so in the morning he just drives it away.  This was another spot we could have stayed for longer.
Drove to Jurien bay to make some phone calls and post some blogs.  It was a lovely little seaside town.  Very quiet.  They had a few great playgrounds which the kids loved, and a few shops. I signed a petition in the cafe for public toilets in the town.  I figured we would have liked them.  The cafe also had some reading material for patrons, one item of which was a recent Challenge magazine, a Christian newspaper.  It was great to see it there, and was very interesting to read, but I wasn't brave enough to ask the lady at the counter where it came from.
We bought some fish and chips for lunch, and it was very nice.  Our fish tastes have refined somewhat with all the good fish we've been given, but this fish met with Dominic's approval.
A bit further south we turned into the Nambung National Park where we walked through the pinnacles, limestone formations in the sand dunes that no one can explain.  They were a bit eerie, like a ruined city. 
 
 

There were lots of flies at the pinnacles

 
The landscape is changing again, with lots of black boys (that's what I know them as) beside the road.  These are the first I've seen on this trip.
We picked up some strawberries and avocados at roadside stalls, and avoided the peacock on the road, before pulling over at Wilbinga Grove for the night.  This roadside stop looks like it may have been popular with some drinkers at one time, and we avoided the camp site with the mountain of beer bottles and the old car bonnet and muffler. (later we found out the local 4WD club had just cleaned the area up and dumped all the bottles and rubbish in one spot to be collected by the local council!)
It was a lovely place still, with big, solid trees, black boys (hope that name is not politically incorrect), wildflowers, and lots of bushes.

When Nadine and Oskar went to paint outside, a swarm of bees decided their painting water was the place to bee.....and so the painting was put on hold.  In fact being outside at all was forgotten.  We sat around inside and ate our pumpkin and cabbage curry (we're coming to the end of our supplies) and soon were in bed.

Everyone is looking forward to being in Perth tomorrow, and not just because we'll get Katie.  I could do with a shower.  There's only so much a bucket of cold water beside the van can achieve.
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Vicki

Geraldton

The wind had picked up again this morning at Coronation beach, otherwise we might have been tempted to stop another night.  As it was, we collected the rubber mats from where they had blown into the bushes and down the road, and headed off for Geraldton.
More wheat fields on the way down south, but it was only half an hour later that we arrived on the outskirts of Geraldton.
Caravan parts, bits from Bunnings, and minor family crises later, we parked near the historic railway station for lunch, then walked over to the museum.

Geraldton has many old buildings and some interesting history.  The little museum contained items recovered from the wreck of the Batavia, a Dutch ship that ran aground off the Abrolhos Islands very early one morning in 1629.  They rowed the passengers over to a nearby desolate island, then the captain, Francisco Pelsaert, and a number of strong men left on a small boat in search of fresh water and rescuers.  Amazingly they got to Batavia (modern day Jakarta) in their little boat, but the captain was very coolly received because he had failed to bring the treasure out of the hold of the Batavia with him.  He returned three months later with divers, soldiers and officials, to a very sorry tale.
The 300 odd people he had left behind had been terrorized by Jeronimus Cornelisz, part of the crew, who took control of the island, killed over a hundred men, women and children, and raped a few more along with his small band of supporters.  The island they were on  had no shade, fresh water or fresh food, and they were using the supplies from the Batavia as it broke up on the reef and they washed ashore. When Pelsaert arrived, Cornelisz was tried and executed.  It was a very interesting and gory story, and the wreck is off the coast of WA.
There was also a display on the HMAS Sydney II, it's history and the discovery of the wreck site.  It is under 2500 metres of water. That's a lot of water.
It had other interesting information about Geraldton, and how they had no source of fresh water to start with, or reliable waste disposal system.  In 1906, the Bubonic plague came to Geraldton, which triggered off a lot of improvements in those areas!
We stopped at the St Francis Xavier Cathedral designed by Monsigneur John Hawes, which was very impressive on the outside and had striped painted walls on the inside.  We wandered around, admiring the stained glass windows, and the children asked lots of questions about the statues and the candles.
   
      
Next we drove up the hill to the relatively new Sydney memorial.  Quite an impressive construction with lots of symbolism involved that we read out to Dominic.  He's been studying symbolism this term in English.
   
When it was built, they had not found the wreck of the Sydney II yet, however it was located in 2008 and on Saturday a new part of the memorial was opened, a memorial pool, circular to symbolize the closing of the whole event really.


By the time we left Geraldton it was late in the afternoon, and we still had a couple of hundred km to drive to our stop for the night.  So it was fairly late when we pulled into sandy bay recreational area to set up camp
Big snake warning signs on the front of the toilet doors were daunting, but the beach was beautiful.  There were sand dunes everywhere.
Oskar had picked out a small toy shark from the museum in Geraldton, and when he came back from burying cooper on the beach, after dark, he suddenly realised he didn't have it.  Back to the beach we went with a torch, but I was pretty sceptical of finding a little grey shark, a few inches long, in the dark, and probably buried in sand.
However, Oskar was determined and picked out all the land marks, found the place that they'd been playing', kicked around a bit, and then picked up the shark.  A bonus was that we also found Joseph's thongs that he'd left on the beach earlier.  Oskar had prayed he would find the shark, so we thanked Jesus for showing us where it was.
Oskar's favourite answer when I ask him a question is "basically".  It works in a vast assortment of situations.
"did you clean your teeth Oskar?"
"basically"
Did you enjoy the snorkeling, Oskar?
"Basically"
On the way back from the beach, Oskar was absolutely certain of a different path back to the van.  He recognized this rock and that tree.  It was pretty dark, and I asked him if he knew the way.  "basically". We ended up in the scrub, up against a sand dune, with prickles everywhere.  "that's it, Oskar, we're going to go my way!"
Didn't put too much stuff outside tonight.  Didn't really want to bring a snake back into the van in the morning.  Consequently we're tripping over baskets of dirty washing and togs.  But it's better than a snake!
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Vicki

Kalbarri

We were off and away this morning, early for us at 9am, but not early enough to beat the little bus that crept away at 5.30am.  Not sure how these people do it!

We turned right off the highway a little further south to go into the Kalbarri National Park, and the road in was lined both sides with amazing purple flowering bushes.  The colour was just so stunning after all the red dirt and spinifex we've been used to.

We walked to the lookout at Hawk's head, and then down to the Murchison river, where everyone had a swim in the slightly salty water.  It's not flowing freely at this time of year and the salt leeches out of the rocks into the water.

The Murchison River

A goat or two poked their head over the towering cliff to see what was going on.  Apparently feral goats can do a lot of damage to the National Parks areas, along with feral cats, foxes and bunnies.  But the bunnies are very cute.  Nadine said they should put a bit more effort into removing the annoying flies, and leave the poor bunnies alone.

Further out to the coast, and we stopped in Kalbarri to look at the place people rave about, and phone Dominic, Nadine and Oskar's teacher.  It was a lovely little town, obviously a lot quieter with the end of the tourist season, and we enjoyed hot chips at the park by the beach.  I noticed a few more businesses for sale here too.

Driving down the coast the ocean was beautiful - a lot darker blue than further north, just as it is in Queensland.  The scrubby, sparse plants slowly gave way to rolling hills of golden wheat...and grubby looking sheep over the fields in between.  There were wheat fields as far as we could see, some harvested, some not.  And in the distance the ocean.

We passed through Northampton an historical town with many old buildings.  A few were designed by architect/priest Monsignor John Hawes.  There are still about 22 buildings in Western Australia designed, and in some cases built, by him.  He designed the big cathedral in Geraldton, which we will make sure we visit.

Soon after, we turned right and drove it to Coronation Beach, a low key caravan stopping point, with clean toilets, shower facilities (you have to bring your own shower, but they provide a nice clean room) and a lovely lookout.  The couple we met at Gregory National Park in Northern Territory told us about it.

 Coronation Beach

It seemed busy after the lonely spots we’re used to - obviously a popular place - and we set up our campsite, explored a bit, and watched a man and his son fishing with great success off the beach.  They gave us three of the Taylor that they caught, and we cleaned them up ready for breakfast.  We seem to keep begging fish off people...a bit embarrassing really.

We were very glad the wind has eased off finally but once the sun went down in all it's orange splendour, the bugs arrived.  Literally thousands.  And they stink when you brush them off anything.  Everyone in the campsite had their lights out early and now I know why!  I think I'd better turn this off as well.

Bugs on the back of the chair sitting under the light

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Vicki