Rick and Rae's Travels: Tues, 17th to Thurs, 19th May

The rain bucketed down for most of the night. Some of the downpours were so heavy I wondered at the time if the young woman had decided to sleep in her car instead of the tent, but she said she stayed dry. As has happened so often previously, the next morning turned out lovely and sunny. We realised that one of the vans near us had moved to higher ground during the night ... where they were parked originally was now a deep puddle. When we saw them later, they said they shifted at around 11pm.

We left Ellendale Pool and headed into Geraldton, back on the coast and booked into a van park for two nights. We caught up with some washing and shopping again, and Rick had a much-needed haircut as he was starting to look a bit wild and woolly. It was nice to have decent telly reception, mobile phone and internet once again.

On Wednesday, we drove around the marina and wharf area and visited the old Geraldton Gaol. The gaol was really disappointing as each cell had been rented to someone selling some type of handicraft, although none of these shops were even open during the time we were there. We didn't stay there long, but then went to the HMAS Sydney memorial which we both agreed was one of the nicest memorials we have been to. The memorial honours 645 Australian sailors who were lost during a World War II battle in 1941 with the ship Kormoran, 207kms off the western-most coast of WA. The canopy over the memorial consists of 645 stainless steel sea birds representing the sailors who perished.

We had a nice lunch on the waterfront watching the tugs manouvreing ships in and out of the busy port area. After lunch we went into the Geraldton Museum and were very impressed with the displays. Later in the afternoon Rick had to take our Navara in to have the wheels aligned again, so he dropped me at the shops for a couple of hours.

Rick woke early on Thursday and headed into town to a car wash and then on to pick up some items at Bunnings. On his return we drove to a lookout at Separation Point which gave us a general overview of Geraldton.

Later in the day we travelled about 24kms south to Greenough Historical Village. This is a small village that has been restored to the way it would have been in the 1800s. Just as we were about to walk the village, a busload of 5 year olds arrived for a school excursion. We decided against walking through the village and drove back a couple of kilometres to the Greenough museum. We can't take a trick ... there was another busload of little tackers there as well! Fortunately, they were just leaving so we had a pleasant wander through the very interesting museum.

Greenough is noted for its 'leaning trees'. These are River Gums that are subjected to constant southerly winds, causing them to grow almost horizontal to the ground. They can be seen in the paddocks along both sides of the road in the area. 'The Wrecker' told me the car was booked into the tyre place at 2pm again today. Apparently, while in the Bunnings car park earlier in the morning he didn't see the low concrete ring that should have been surrounding a tree (no tree in it), and he drove into it. He was worried it may have bent the steering slightly and should be looked at. It turned out that it wasn't too bad, and was easily fixed.