Wild Colours, Ideas and Flowers

Just a quick one tonight because it has all got a little late on me, and I had a late one last night. My trusty Dell netbook had a little hernia last night, and so earned only its second reboot of the trip so far. Not too bad for Windows really I guess. I was doing my occasional clear of the memory card in my camera and a combination of ejecting memory cards, copying files into directories, and big backup directories became all too much for it.

Port Gregory is beside the sea, and the Pink Lake. The seaside is protected by a reef, and was thought it would be a good port, but several shipwrecks in the first two years soon put paid to that idea. We hoped to see whales, but there were no vantage points high enough, so it was off to the lake. The lake is in fact pink, as advertised. This is due to a particular algae that thrives in the salty conditions. They “mine” beta-carotene here for use as a food colouring. There is also another mine just down the road where they dig up garnet. It is in the form of sand and used as an abrasive.

Just down the road is evidence of the convict past. The settlement of Lynton, a name that will bring back memories for some of you, shows the stark contrast between settler and convict life. For about three years, a settler lived in his fine country house, two stories overlooking the pink lake and the coastal dunes above rolling green and flowering paddocks, while around the corner on the other side of the hill was the convict depot, used a source of cheap labour no doubt. Like just about everywhere round here, the lack of reliable water, and the failure of the port led to the quick demise of that settlement.

A minor diversion into Australia’s most haunted house didn’t hold us up much. I doubt there is an Australian Standard for measuring hauntedness, and there was certainly no evidence in the middle of the day. For the small fee of $25 the proprietor would have no doubt put up a good story, but we declined.

On to Geraldton. The main attraction for us was domestics, with shopping, internet and lunch on the agenda. While I attended to much of that, the kids engrossed themselves in the outpost of the WA museum, with stories of the Batavia and other attractions. Together again, we did a whirlwind tour of the port, which apparently has a fishing fleet, and the bulk handling has had various commodities over the years, with iron ore I suspect now having given away to grains as the major export. Didn’t have time to investigate properly, and we have certainly seen some weird looking trucks and trains around.

Geraldton is also the site of the current main memorial to HMAS Sydney, sunk by the Kormoran and discovered recently off Steep Point. It occupies a point high on the hill overlooking the port and out to sea to the north.

All of that delayed us, so the journey to Mullewa was undertaken in fading light, perhaps diminishing the effect somewhat. We can say though that the strip of flowers along the roadside has given way to fields of flowers, which, blended with the stark yellow of canola fields is a very different feel from the arid lands just to the north.