Moora, New Norcia, Cunderdin

We drove from Cervantes through Moora, an area known for its wildflowers and we were fortunate to be travelling at the time of the year when they are in full flower but we didn’t stop except for a few hours at New Norcia - home to a community of Benedictine monks who arrived as missionaries from Spain in 1846 and established a village in the hope that they could peacefully bring the local Aborigines to Christ! They had some success and with donations from Europe built a substantial community with monastery, chapel and supporting buildings which they now use as accommodation for conferences, tourism and the like. It is still a thriving village run by the order.
We stopped overnight in the busy wheat belt town of Cunderdin and then followed the 650 km “golden pipe line” constructed to enable the gold mining towns to survive by providing them with water from the hills near Perth and travelled the road used by prospectors who crowded this trail on horseback and foot over a century ago during the time of the great gold rush east. We too are headed for Kalgoorlie.

Geraldton

The drive down to Geraldton was very pretty, it is wildflower season and together with the flowering wattles they are growing along the side of the road, in parts it was almost like driving through a botanical garden. When we reached the wheat belt and a landscape similar to that north of Adelaide and of a type we haven’t seen for a long time, we knew we had sadly well and truly left the tropics behind! One reason for our stop over here was to get a car service, we have travelled over 15,000 km so far!
It is school holidays in WA and this weekend a Monday public holiday for the Queen’s birthday, so busy with local holiday makers here in Geraldton and many family groups in the camp ground which is next to the sea. The ocean here is popular with wind surfers, and they have plenty of wind to play with. We went down to the marina this afternoon, there must be some money to be made here because a good supply of large glossy boats were in dock, but then rock lobster fishing is a local enterprise.
On a hill above the CBD is a memorial to the HMAS Sydney, a silver dome consisting of 645 silver sea gulls, one for each of the men who went down with the ship, it can be seen for miles around a touching memorial to a tragic event.
We aren’t enjoying the cold and windy weather - will likely head in the direction of home soon and leave southern WA for another day.