Day 65 – Sun, 12 Sep to Geraldton

Well what a thoroughly enjoyable day – a mix of riding, sightseeing, museums and unexpected accommodation.

I headed S out of Kalbarri and stopped into a number of the lookouts down the coast, all part of the Kalbarri NP – the coastal fringe. This is truly a rugged coastline and the NP gives you access to the headlands, beaches and what look to be great walking paths. You can basically walk from Kalbarri down over the coastal heath to the various lookouts for tens of km.

After leaving the NP the road continued S to the town of Port Gregory. The town looks like a little holiday fishing village but there is sand and garnet mining to the E. The town sits out on the Indian Ocean coast and the wind was blowing like a gale. Behind the town are pink coloured lakes – yep pink. I haven’t yet determined what causes the colour, I guess the mineral content of the sand, a lot of garnet is in this area so maybe that is the reason.

On leaving Port Gregory I ran into light showers and really gusting wind. This made for tough riding conditions but the road headed slightly inland and the terrain was wonderful. There was more farming land, some sheep, some crops – not sure could be barley or even possibly wheat and another very low course crop, all very young and difficult to determine. I was really focussed on staying on the road.

The undulating hills with a mix of sown & natural pastures, with wild flowers lining the verges of the road made for beautiful scenery. I just couldn’t risk stopping for photographs, there were no real stopping points and with the wind and showers it wasn’t a priority in my thinking.

This continued through to the town of Northampton. I am about 3 weeks too early for the Hanging of the Quilts, where the town hang quilts out their windows – quaint. This town had a lot of historical buildings & houses, an old convent and would be an interesting place to investigate a little more.

At Northampton I picked up the main North West Coastal Hwy again for the run S to Geraldton. I arrived around noon, and I spent about an hour just driving around getting a feel for the place. I decided to stay for the night to see whether the showers and wind pass. I had some lunch then headed for the WA Museum.

This was simply fabulous, with exhibits on the general area, the people, the town, and surrounding region. It also had a fabulous exhibit on the Batavia and other wrecks primarily from the East India Company, the Dutch traders from the 17th century that were wrecked off the coast.

The Museum also had a really good exhibit on the HMAS Sydney (II) that was sunk by the German raider, the Kormorant off the coast with all lives lost. The Sydney was only found in 2008 about 124 nautical miles W of Point Steep (the W most part of mainland Australia) in about 2500m of water.

A really enjoyable time, followed by a visit to the HMAS Sydney Memorial and a quick visit to the local Catholic Cathedral.  The day ended with me staying in the Batavia Backpackers. I am in a dorm room, but there is only 5 of us in a room large enough for 20, This will do for a single night, better than camping in the rain.

The interesting thing is that the building is heritage listed and has been restored magnificently. It was originally a hospital build in the 1870’s and operated through to 1964. At that time it fell into a little disrepair until the prison authorities ran it as a low risk prison. The majority of the prisoners stayed as the accommodation was good, the food was excellent and there was no fencing (other than a 1.2m brick wall),

So, in all what I thought was going to be a basic transit day, finished with some testing riding (because of the conditions) and then wonderful and informative locations. The only thing about Geraldton is that on Sunday it is closed. Some waterfront cafes were open, but the rest of town, with a population of around 25,000, surprising was closed.