27th April – Sunday

Well, here we are, Day 1 of this adventure.  We set off for Dongara/Port Denison at about 8am and were farewelled by Kaye, Geoff, Lynette and Flossie.  Geoff navigated the Caravan out of the driveway.  If I had been doing it we would probably still be in Stoneville going up and down the driveway.  It helps to have a professional guide.

We took the Coast Road as we don’t like Brand Highway due to the high volume of roadtrains going up North. There were heaps of caravans and boats going in the opposite direction back to Perth as it is the end of the school holidays – hence our departure date.  We felt sorry for the poor buggers. This time it was finally our turn to gloat :-).  We stopped off in Lancelin for the obligatory pie at the bakery. We stopped again in Green head for toilet and leg breaks.

We arrived in Dongara/Port Denison at around 2pm.  Ralph reversed the caravan in first time.  I was so proud of him. I think that he was proud of him too.

We set up and had problems with the awning only because we didn’t know what we were doing.  The chap next door saw that we were battling a bit and came over to give us a hand.  Evidently we weren’t the only ones in the park who had this problem which made us feel a tad happier.  Of course, we had to have our teething problems as no travels would be the same without them.  The hot water system kept tripping our power and we had to switch over to gas.  No major dramas but it will have to be fixed.  I then knicked a hole in the sink water outlet which Ralph had to fix.  Thank God I have a Mr. Fix it for a hubby. xx  We had dinner, went for a walk along the foreshore and to the Marina.  There are loads of big fishing boats in the marina.  This is a crayfishing area.  As we were walking along there were 2 big pleasure craft in dock and 2 couples hanging around their boat tinkering with their car.  They couldn’t get it started so Ralph came back to the campsite to get our car to jump start them (forever the good samaritan).  These 2 couples had just been cruising the Abrolhos Islands and just docked and were going out for dinner.  The boys were taking the boat back to Perth and the girls were driving the car back.   Their car was a state of the art, top of the whozzer Toyota Landcruiser.  Once again Nissan comes to the rescue of Toyota (had to put that in 🙂 ).  The night was windy and rainy and the frigging awning was flap, flap, flapping all night.  No sleep for us and we will have to do something about it.

A Brief History of the Irwin District
Situated on Arurine Bay next to the Irwin River are the historic twin towns of Dongara and Port Denison, the coastal settlements of the Shire of Irwin.

In 1839, an expedition led by George Grey left Perth in the Swan River Colony by ship, bound for the area near Kalbarri, north of the Murchison River. His boats and supplies were destroyed in a cyclone, and he was forced to make the 7OOkm (450 miles) trek south to Perth.

Lieuteneant Grey and his party became the first recorded Europeans to traverse the Irwin District and note the extent of promising pastoral country in the Irwin River Basin. It was Grey who gave the European name ‘Irwin’ to the river.

The aboriginal people of this region, the Wattandee, had called the river estuary ‘Thungarra’ meaning ‘a place of seals’. It was the anglicising of this name that gives Dongara its present name.

Further exploration occurred in 1846 when the Gregory brothers discovered coal in the upper reaches of the river. Europeans returned and remained permanently in 1851 when grazing leases were taken up by the Cattle Company, and the first house of wattle and daub with thatched roof was built.

Cattle and sheep were soon grazing under the watchful eye of shepherds who were accompanied by their families and in August 1852 the first European child, Mary Criddle, was born. In the same year the Dongara this coupled with with drought, locust plagues and fire brought poverty to the settlers.

Despite these setbacks, the early 1870s saw the building of a Police Station, an annex Post Office and the formation of the Irwin Road Board and in 1881 a second hotel.

Father LeCaille built the first Catholic Church in 1872 and in 1884 the Wesleyan and Anglican churches were constructed.

By the 1890’s, the discovery of rust resistant wheat had improved harvests, however a world economic depression meant low prices for cereals.

In 1894 the Midland Railway, connected Perth and Geraldton and a local merchant, Francis Pearse, opened the Royal Steam Roller Flour Mill (see Below). The Moreton Bay Fig Trees which line the main street of Dongara were planted in 1906, and 32 volt DC electric lighting was provided to Dongara townsfolk in 1939.

More recently the discovery of natural gas, the development of the rock lobster industry and the mining of lime sands has added new economic dimensions to the long established agricultural industry.