Week 08

Days 50 - 53 - Perth

Total 7955kms

More shopping, cleaning, eating out and visiting friends and just driving around and looking at the countryside. All very pleasant, but nothing that would interest the astute readership of this journal.

Day 54 - Perth -> New Norcia

Today 131kms / Total 8086kms

After two weeks in Perth, we're on our way again. We are aiming to go north along the coast, but first we want to look at a remarkable community. This is New Norcia; a town built by the Benedictine Monks in the 19th century. It was established by two Spanish Benedictines as a mission for the aborigines in 1846 and was named after the birthplace in Italy of the founder of the order, St Benedict. Most of the architecture has a Spanish theme, and the buildings now comprise a boys' and a girls' school, bakery, convent, monastery, an old mill and a hotel. Most of the buildings are now used for hospitality and lodging, but the monastery is still in use by the monks.

The most amazing thing is that this gathering of European religious buildings is in the middle of the Western Australian bush.

One of the small problems for the community is that Highway 1 runs right through the middle of it. This is part of the original convent, now the information centre, museum and art gallery.

It's very dry in WA at the moment!

Not your normal religious mural.

The Abbey Church has a bell that tolls the quarter hour and another to toll the hours. I think I heard them all during the night we stayed...

St Gertrude's College was a girls' boarding school.

The hotel opened in 1927 and is still operating.

Camped by the side of the monastery oval, blissfully unaware of the evening's dramas to come.

We set up camp by the oval (it was further away from the highway than the other option - behind the roadhouse/service station).

As this was our first bush camp (ie: unpowered) in about 4 weeks, I was taking more than a casual interest in the battery indicator. It became rather worrying as I watched the gauge move firstly into the orange, and then into the red zone. It was rather obvious that something was wrong as this rate of decrease in power had never happened before and would surely mean that there'd be hardly any battery power left by the morning. To put off the fateful moment a little longer, we started the generator and ran it for an hour or so, then went to bed and turned everything off except the fridge.

Next morning showed that the batteries had been nearly depleted; something that does not do them any good at all. With sunlight and the car's alternator running, they showed signs of life again, but this put a large question mark in the front of my mind as to why this had happened. It did not bode well for bush camping in the future until we'd sorted out the problem.

Day 55 - New Norcia -> Cervantes

Today 220kms / 8306Total kms

Despite what Mr Google will show if you click on the link above, there is a delightful new road called the Indian Ocean Drive that opened last year. This runs from Lancelin to Cervantes along the coast and saves about 80kms by not having to return to the Brand Hwy. It is also quite picturesque as you get beautiful ocean views as you drive along.

The countryside would have been a lot nicer to look at if it hadn't been reduced to ashes about 5 weeks before our visit.

Not much green here at the lookout.

Grass Trees seem to able to survive anything. They all had green shoots coming out.

The Big Bad Banksia Men were happy, though! It takes a fire for the seed pods to open.

While the fire had destroyed a huge area, it will eventually regenerate. Talking to some local people in Cervantes, it seems the fire was started at the lookout by a tourist who threw a cigarette butt out of the car window.

After we had passed through the burnt area, we came across another lookout that showed the countryside in a more natural state.

You can play 'Find the Wallaby' if you like (there's one there).

Day 56 - Cervantes (The Pinnacles)

Today 75kms / 8381Total kms

Why, you may ask, is he taking photos of wet rocks? The answer, as you probably already know, is that these are far from being wet rocks. These are Stromatolites. These are colonies of cyanobacteria that form colonies and are very similar to the first forms of life on Earth. The earliest known were growing in the Pilbara about 3.4 billion years ago. The ones here in Lake Thetis outside Cervantes are believed to be only 3500 years old. We'll be seeing more of these liffe forms when we get to Shark Bay.

The main point of going to Cervantes (assuming that you're not an avid fisher-person) is to see The Pinnacles. Whilst the name would suggest towering mountain peaks, the reality is much different.

They're about that big. :-)

These fascinating limestone structures are a bit of a mystery when it comes to how they were formed (this link might help), but there's no doubt that they have a real beauty in the early morning or late afternoon light.

Continue to Week 9