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