History and Scenic Water (Day 2)
Today we travelled from Geraldton to Kalbarri.
We started off our morning with a visit to the Geraldton Museum. The WA coastline isn’t known as the Shipwreck Coast but it should be as there are more than 1600 known wrecks, many of them from early European explorations and specifically the Dutch East India Trading Company (VOC). The VOC was the first business entity to link the East and West and much of their trade was in spices; they determined that they could cut six weeks off their sailing time if their ships sailed a certain distance east and then caught the northerly winds to Java. Trouble was they still hadn’t solved the longitude problem and distances were estimated only: they often came too far east and wrecked upon the shallow shoals of the WA coast.
The most famous shipwreck of them all is probably the Batavia, which stranded on the Abrolhos Islands. A rescue boat went off to Java but by the time help returned the sailors left behind had mutinied and taken over the islands in a bizarre maelstrom of murder, assault and thievery.
The Shipwreck Gallery in the museum has some wonderful artefacts from this and other wrecks (there is a also a Shipwreck Museum in Fremantle, where the remains of the Batavia rests), as well as a great little theatre that plays a poignant 3D film about the HMAS Sydney. This museum is well worth a visit if you are ever in Geraldton.
From Geraldton we headed north to the old hiring convict depot at Lynton.
Can you guess which direction the prevailing wind comes from?
And we found a friend!
From Lynton it was a short trip to see a VERY pink lake (Hutt Lagoon, actually). They mine salt here and the colour of the lake changes, depending on how much water is let in and out of the channels. Beta carotene in the lake helps give it that pink colour but the presence of red garnet sands in the area also helps. Today was as pink as I’v ever seen it!
Then it was onto viewing stops along the spectacular coastal cliffs of Kalbarri. We stayed overnight in this beautiful town situated at the entrance to the Murchison River.
