Hapton Arms pub/hotel

Leaning tree near Grenough

leaning tree

Ralphs catch

Ferral cat at the fishing spot

Sunset

Gavin and Rose and their lovely new digs.

HMAS Sydney – Lady waiting for her husband

HMAS Sydney memorial

28th April – Monday

A new day we didn’t sleep a wink with that frigging flap, flap, flapping. Everytime the wind came up the flapping of the awning would sway the caravan – enough to make you seasick. The weather is still pretty crappy but we are still enjoying ourselves. Found out some info on the caravan park and the beaches around here. The beaches are full of sea weed or non existant due to the worlds tidal changes. The caravan park has built up a huge wall of rock along the front to stop the sea from encroaching into the chalets which are right on the water front. They seem to think that they might lose this fight with mother nature. After dinner we took the awning down hoping to get a better nights sleep. We shall see. YAWN……tired. 🙂

29th April – Tuesday

Up at sparrow and decided to go to Geraldton to buy a de-flapper thingie. It’s not a particularly exciting drive but it’s a nice day and we really need to get this thing on the van. We stopped off near Greenough to take some pictures of the leaning trees. The trees here are almost leaning onto the ground because of the constant high winds. Greenough is an historical little settlement. Didn’t stop – been there, done that. :-). We got our de-flapper and headed off to the HMAS Sydnedy memorial on top of the hill which overlooks they sea where they think that she went down.

Some brief info of the HMAS Sydney

This magnificent memorial has become the country’s premier site for honouring the 645 Australian sailors who were lost off the Western Australian coast during a World War II battle with a German raider in November 1941. RAN cruiser HMAS Sydney II and her men disappeared after a battle with German raider HSK Kormoran. While both ships were lost, many of the Kormoran crew survived the ordeal.

The beautifully designed memorial features five elements steeped in symbolism: a silver dome of 645 seagulls to represent each of the lost Sydney sailors. The wall of remembrance shows photographs of the ship and the names of the Sydney crew. To the north, a bronze statue of a woman gazes desperately out to sea as she awaits news of the ill-fated Sydney. Nearby is the stele – a single, dramatic shape representing the bow of the ship.

The recently completed 5th element (November 2011) is the pool of remembrance ‘Closing the Circle’. 644 Seagulls are lining the base of the pool, the 645th, standing 2 metres tall above the pool, its wing indicating the spot where the wreck lies together with longitude and latitude coordinates. The combination of these five elements results in an extremely moving and fitting memorial.

Both the wreck of the HMAS Sydney II and HSK Kormoran were found in March 2008. For more information click here.

Apparently the name was changed when she came to WA….. can’t exactly remember why, but as the legend goes, it’s unlucky to change a ships name. We got back to the caravan park and Ralph installed the de-flappers. hallelujah, no more flapping. It works a treat. Mr. fix it strikes again. Off to bed to have a nice restful night.

30th April – Wednesday

We were going to leave today but decided that we weren’t chilled enough and needed some more time so we extended until Sunday. Gavin and Rose arrive in their new motor home on Friday so we also thought that it would be nice to wait for them. We decided to go to the Hampton Arms Inn for lunch which is about a 30km drive. We have been there before. It’s a quant little place and they have 3 rooms full of second hand books for purchase. A tad expensive for 2nd hand books but worth a browse. We thought that they had closed down as the place has declined big time since we were there last time. We were about to take off when the owner came out and assured as that lunches were still on. We were the only ones there so Mr. owner sat with us while we ate (awesome lunch cooked by him) and told us his life story while keeping my glass filled with wine. An interesting bloke. He’s getting on and has the place up for sale. Whoever buys it will need to spend quite a bit of money on it. I think .it would be worth it as it has character and potential. We got back to camp and had drinks with some other camper people we met. A couple from Adelaide and a couple from Melbourne. The boys tried not to talk football because everyone obviously had different teams but of course that didn’t work out. 🙂 Actually the lady from Melbourne was worse with her football than the blokes. 🙂

1st May – Thursday

Ralph got up early because he was adamant that he was going to catch our dinner. I stayed in bed, too early for me. When it got light I made a flask of coffee and Hugo and I took it down to the Hunter Gatherer. There he was, cleaning his catch for our dinner. There were 3 ferral cats living in the rocks where he was fishing. They came out as most people throw them the heads and innards. I only saw one, it was quite pretty and also small, not like the bush cats you see. They will come close to you but will still keep that distance. Ralph had caught a good catch of Herring which we smoked. It was awesome. Otherwise a pretty uneventfull, laid back day. This will probably be all I do now for Dongara. Gavin and Rose arrive tomorrow and we will probably veg and go fishing. We leave here on Sunday for Coronation beach which is about 100kms.