2017 The Lap

The "Nullarbor Links" is an 18 hole par 73 golf course and it's said to be "the world's longest golf course".    "The Nullarbor Links" is a unique concept designed to get tourists to stop along the highway and bring tourism and money into some of the smaller towns.    Anyway, having not played golf for about 25 years we've decided to play this course on the way home across the Nullarbor.    So far, as at Thursday 28 September, we've played the two holes at Kalgoorlie and one at Kambalda and we're getting our money's worth!   We enjoyed playing the fairways at Kalgoorlie with their beautifully manicured lawns and finely cut greens - and the kangaroos enjoyed them too! The Kambalda Golf Club offered up gravel and rock fairways with fine black tar greens!    The Vice President of the Club kindly offered me the loan of a putter for $5 that was donated to the RFDS. We've scoured the op shops to date only managing to ...

We finished The Wildflower Way at Dalwallinu and intended staying the night here but the caravan park was a desolate affair with gravel as far as the eye could see and barely a tree in sight. The local arts and craft store looked inviting but alas, not one of the shops were open. We fear that might be the case over the next few days - it's the Queen's Birthday long weekend holiday in WA.   We pressed on late in the afternoon to Kalannie where the Dalwallinu council-run caravan park was a bit lonely - we were the only people in the park. The facilities were clean and there was lots of hot water but it was a bit unsettling being so far away from anywhere and anyone else.   And we were right, leaving Kalannie to Kulja, Beacon, Wailki and Mukinbudin - nothing is open so no coffee, no bread, no vanilla slices ... ... so on we go to Warralakin, Bullfinch and our destination for today - Southern Cross.   We decided to do The Wheatbelt Way Drive Trail and headed t...

The rain and wind squalls stopped around 6 o'clock this morning allowing us to get an early start out of Geraldton to Mullewa to see if we could find the "wreath flowers".   After checking in at the Information Centre we went to see the Rev John Hawes' church and museum.  Hawes was born in 1876 in England and trained as an architect.  He studied at the Lincoln Theological College following his conversion to High Anglicanism and o rdained in 1903.  After his ordination he went to work in the London slums. He then worked as a missionary in the Bahamas where he rebuilt a number of churches which had been destroyed by a hurricane.  Two years later, he became a Catholic and was baptized in New York in 1911.   Hawes studied in Rome and was ordained a Catholic priest and followed an invitation to come to Australia and arrived in Geraldton with plans for a new Cathedral already in his possession.  In 1916 he became the parish priest of Mullew...

Windy, wet, windy, stormy, windy, wet Geraldton.  Did I mention windy and wet? The windscreen wipers were on for rain for the first time since 23rd June when we left Melbourne.   We checked  in to the recommended Big 4 but even though we're members we were given a desolate gravel site not one of the beautifully manicured lawn sites.  Not a good start!  Then the first toilet door I opened in the ablutions block was so small, I thought it was a kids toilet. The second, third and fourth toilet doors each revealed a Pygmy-sized calf-height toilet. The shower heads were for also for women of a similar height.  Not a good start! Anyway, we needed to have dinner and two cyclists from Perth who we chatted with in the cafe at Northampton on our way south recommended the Wintersun Hotel in Geraldton. So we headed to the hotel to watch the Preliminary Final between Geelong and Adelaide. We were greeted by, "Arthur ... Arthur's my name, 'Uncle Arthur' woo hoo!" ...

19 September   On to Kalbarri the next morning via a few National Park lookouts overlooking the Gorge and the Murchison River.   We took a whale watching cruise late in the afternoon and "enjoyed", with the eight tourists from Hong Kong and China the movements of the whales and the dolphins. Lorraine asked the skipper if he could let them know that the reason the whales disappear so quickly after they've broken the surface of the water is because they squeal and shriek so loudly - tell them that the whales are scared! Ooooh!  Arrrrgh!  Scream, Scream! Whales heading south. It was great to see some whales slapping their tales and rising above the water - particularly after the poor showing on the whale cruise at Kooljiman/Cape Levique.  And after all of our attempts to catch a fish on this trip - from Derby, Broome ... to Kalbarri we decided if we were to catch anything, it had to be here, our penultimate town on the west coast.  Who kne...

Monkey Mia We had an early start for the drive to Monkey Mia.  Lorraine was keen to swim with the dolphins - we figure the dolphins don't know where the "imaginary exclusion line" is - but there weren't many dolphins at the early feeding session.  To protect the dolphins and ensure they retain their ability to search for their own food in the wild, only two people are offered one fish each to feed to the dolphins. Tourists patiently waiting like school children! It was a bit cool so we watched a couple of the "feeding sessions", enjoyed a caffeine fix and headed back to Hamelin Pool Station for a Devonshire Tea. Hamelin Pool Telegraph Station Hamelin Pool Devonshire Teahouse. Hamelin Pool Station   The shores of Hamelin Pool are dotted with  stromatolites , the world's largest and oldest living fossils, and they are among the most diverse in the world and show us what marine ecosystems would have looked like three billion years ago...