Jurian Bay / Sandy Cape 25/10/14

 Spent 4 nights at Cliff Head by the jetty a great free camp with good fishing off the jetty when the wind allowed.Giant stingrays cruising past daily,dolphins,and a good bag of fish each day
(living off the land)
A pair of Sea Eagles shared this nest on the jetty.

 The Jetty was a great place to fish or just sit and admire the harsh coastline and varied marine life.




Right      Spent 3 nights at Sandy Cape where we stayed on our last trip and is one of our favorite spots.
View from the boardwalk
Below one of the many fishing spots where we actually caught fish,and lost a lot of bait and tackle.

DAVINCI MACHINES EXHIBITION GERALDTON

More than 500 years ago a man of extraordinary vision designed these machines,what a genious !
Left is a tank which was moved by 8 men via a series of gears and wheels with 18 cannons around it

 Right is a wind up car driven by leaf springs and gears

 A chain driven bicycle



A warship with 8 cannons







Below
A worm and wormwheel pulley

Geraldton 18/10/14

 We have spent a week in and around Geraldton,
Some nights at a beach in town and the rest at Walkaway,a little town 25 k south.Great pub,a little shop and a railway museum.We damped on the oval behind the rec centre.Toilets and power
Very friendly little town and hard to leave

Below
A coffee by the marina after visiting the Davinci Machines exhibition in the Geraldton Museum
near the boatramp carpark and free hot showers
where we visited daily.

Hutt River Provence 10/10/14

Principality of Hutt River

Hutt River is an Independent Sovereign State having 

seceded from Australia on 21st of April 1970 and is

of comparable size to Hong Kong.

The principality consists of undulating farm 

land well covered with a wealth of shrubs and glorious 

wild flowers.

H.R.H Prince Leonard, a keen supporter of both the 

Arts and Conservation, has named parts of the Principality

Lake Beginning, Mount Secession, Lake Serenity

and Wild Bear Gorge.  His town site, Nain, has

been developed with many buildings to provide facilities

for the tourists who visit in their thousands each year.

This includes Administration Building, Government 

Office and Post Office, Tea Rooms, Swimming Pool

and Inter-Denominational Chapel as well as the Arcade

housing the Memorabilia Dept.  and Historical displays

and of course the Sovereigns Reception building.

It is perhaps of interest to note that W.A. was actually

never proclaimed by Captain Stirling as British

Territory, as was required of him under his Letter Patent

He only proclaimed A Settlement  the Swan Settlement.

VISIT THE SITE
www.principality-hutt-river.com




We spent 2 lovely day's mixing with Prince
Leonard and his son Graham (he had 7 children
in total) and lost his wife in the last 12 months.

Kalbarri /Murchison House Station 8/10/14

 The entrance to Murchison House Station is guarded by this Dalek.
There are numerous ww2 relics including the landing craft below which kids can play on and explore even into the inner driving part via a steel door.
The station is a 350 000 acre working farm with goats ,brahman cattle and some sheep
originally settled in 1858 by Charles Von Bibra

After a 3.5 k trip down the Murchison river with a couple of stops along the way and waiting for a mother / son combo who flipped over twice (good thing they gave us waterproof valuable bags )
And some amazing scenery along the way, we were treated to a much appreciated outback brekky.
The trip back with a strong tailwind made the canoes quite hard to control,but great fun.

Shark Bay (Denham ) 4/10/14

Shark Bay is classed as a World Heritage Area.and is definitely  worth an extended stay.
We saw a Manta ray with 2 sharks in tow under one of the three jettys.10% of the worlds Dugong population live here.
Monkey Mia is nearby and is worth a stay.

We visited an art show in the local visitors centre and loved the Red Dog and thought Deb would maybe like the beach scene made up of pebbles,glass beads,shells and sand

Denham 4/10/14

 Large deposits of  cockle shells at Hamelin Pool many metres deep have cemented together.
Early settlers cut these into blocks to use as building materials.
Many of these early buildings still stand such as the building below in Denham












Below is a close up of the blocks after 100 year still intact and slightly weathered.
Amazing considering the cyclones that have battered the coast here

Quobba Station 3/10/14

 The Kimberly steam loco was used to replace the camel drawn tramway to bring livestock to the 1 mile jetty.
In need of some replacement boiler tubes it will be up and running again soon.
Built in Scotland it is believed to be the only one of its type in the world.
In the museum is a card table where many years ago Quobba station was won and lost over a poker game-hence the saying 'playing for sheep stations.The losing hand was four of a kind,the winner had J,Q,K,A of diamonds and was dealt the 10 and won the sheep station!

 Check out this amazing pump
Still working perfectly and I cannot figure out how it works

I'm a bit worried about Val the local Aboriginals are starting to call her sister

Carnarvan 2/10/14

 Interesting museum at 1 mile jetty (where we stayed for 2 nights) This ww2 german life boat made of steel plate sits on display
Home guard picked up the survivors and eventualy they were escorted to Perth
We just spent 2 nights at Quobba Stn where all the action happened.

 Steves 37 ft Randell which he is painstakingly
restoring and should be back in the water in a couple of months and back on its mooring, ready for our next visit hey Steve.


Below Quobba Station where the desert meets the sea just north of Carnarvan.
Stayed 2 nights here and loved it.We stayed at the Homestead camp nothing flash but good facilities and a bucket of oysters off the rocks.
Froze some the rest for tonights dinner.