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Tawny Frogmouth OwlDAY 187
What a lovely nights sleep, it was a lovely warm night, well there was a cool breeze that drifted in through the open window flaps every now and again. We did wake up at 7.00 but chose to stay in bed a little longer as it was so comfy. I think Andy was up first anyway, I know, he usually is.
Today we will explore a little bit of Carnarvon, but first we take the sleeping bags and blankets out to hang on the line for a decent airing. Then I find the thorns in the grass, ouch! Mat the owner sees me and shouts across, “they really hurt don’t they!” Yes they jolly well do!
After a shower and a bacon and egg sandwich we venture into Carnarvon, first driving to the “OTC” a huge dish that sits up on the hill overlooking Carnarvon, this dish is now disused and is in a poor rusty state, although you are able to walk up the stairs to the lower platform, there is a stunning view of the area, taking in the plantations that surround Carnarvon, we did not stay for long as there is nothing much
Awake
Briefly awake else up here, the visitors centre closed down a while ago. I may have misheard but I am sure that someone said this dish also had something to do with the Apollo missions.
Anyway, back in the truck we found ourselves driving straight down to the sea front. It looks very tropical here and they have made a real effort to make the sea front very appealing it is lined with palm trees, it all looks so green.
We see a huge area of mangroves and as we stop and look we see a plane fly into the local airport above our heads.
We drive round to one-mile jetty, driving past the new houses and the already allocated blocks of land. There looks to be a real effort to bring more money into the area, the houses are all modern design and some are very large. We find out later the land and build packages are probably in the region of $750,000.
At the jetty, it is turning out to be a really hot day. We were going to walk down the jetty but it is only an extra $1 each to go on the train
OTC Carnarvon
This dish is no longer in use and here it stands looking over Carnarvon so in all we paid $6.00 for a jaunt on “The Coffee Pot”, however we do have to wait for it to come back to the beginning so we have time to walk up to the old Water Tower and go to the top for a birds eye view. It feels like another precarious structure to walk up, but I am sure that it is stable enough.
At the top the water tank has been converted with a huge platform inside it, so we stand on the platform and admire Carnarvon and its surrounding area from a great height. We see the train coming back down the jetty so we climb down the stairs and just as we arrive at the little platform the train pulls in and its current passengers (all 2 of them) alight for Andy and I to board.
How excited are we, the last time we went on anything like this was on the Isle of Man nearly 2 years ago when we went on Ant and Bee (but it was pouring with rain and when I say pouring it was pouring!).
Slowly the train pulls out and we make our way down
the one mile jetty, you can feel the boards move underneath as the train rolls over them. I perhaps should explain here that the one mile jetty is not currently one mile long, there is a piece missing in the middle. You might like to think that perhaps the sea got rough and it collapsed but no, a vandal set fire to it. So at the moment you cannot get right to the end.
It is a shame because they have very little money and the council are fortunately going to pay for the repairs but it is a specialist job and is expected to cost in the region of $1,000,000 which means that something else has to go without in order to fund the rebuild.
Toward the end of the stretch we are able to get to, I wonder if the train will stop, there is a barrier there but it comes up quite quickly and I wonder if Old Mal will remember to apply the brakes! Still if we did drop over the edge the water is quite shallow beneath us albeit probably cold water too!
We get off and look around, not much to
View from
The water tower overlooking Babbage Island see stuck out here except a pretty good view back to land. The boards do wobble a bit when you walk on them too! Andy chats to the driver and finds out that Old Mal is 82 years old, he is a volunteer and does this for 2 days a week, we are told that he would do it for 7 days a week if he could but his health will not let him (Andy pointed out to me later that there were 2 crutches in behind the drivers seat).
Just to be sure that I had my facts straight about what happened to the pier, I asked Old Mal, his response was “some mongrel burnt it”, that’s all he would say.
A couple that walked up the jetty found it exhausting decided to take the train back, it was time to go as he only waits 5 minutes at the top (I am sure Mal would not miss taking his turn at driving the little train even if there were leaves on the line!). We trundle back down the rickety pier and back onto land again.
We pop into the little museum which has a shearing
The Water Tower
converted into a lookout hall of fame and we learn about HMAS Sydney which sank somewhere off the coast of Carnarvon along with the German ship Kormoran. HMAS Sydney sank with all crew members, there were no survivors. It has taken researchers years, and many books, to really discover the truth behind this ship sinking. Finally they found both ships off the West Coast and after discussions with some of the survivors from the Kormoran they pieced together what actually happened. The Kormoran was a German war ship disguised as a freighter and sank the HMAS Sydney. Kevin Rudd (current Prime Minister) announced to Australia when HMAS Sydney was located.
Mid afternoon it was scorching so we decided to head back to camp, Andy needed to make another slight modification on the trailer so was keen to get on with it and I could sit and write yesterdays blog.
However back at camp, we find we have a new neighbour, but even worse they have laid claim to the Tawny Frogmouth Owls, they said “We hope our Owls don’t keep you awake at night”, to which we responded “they were our owls first”, then the response came “but they are in our
trees.” “We were here first!” Oh well it looks like our owls have defected, never mind we had them for one night.
I find out that the people camping next to us are from Queensland, it seems to be a common question now when people see you have a Queensland plate, they ask “did you come round the top or the bottom?” I actually find myself asking that very question, they responded that they have come round the bottom, across the Nullarbor and are heading back over the top, via Darwin.
They live on the sunshine coast near Mooloolaba, which was also near where we had an apartment when we arrived here 6 months ago (small world).
I take a few more photos of “our” Owls, one of them has their eyes wide open and is watching me carefully even as I make my way round the other side of the tree. I got some great photos yesterday but they are so much better with open eyes.
Anyway, an uneventful remainder of the day, Andy got done what he needed to and I got done what I needed to, we set about having an early evening
6 wheels on my wagon
These people have been on the road for 9 years and have no intention stopping now. meal as we did not have much for lunch. The trouble is the camp kitchen is so far away that if you forget things (like we did) then you have to keep walking back to camp to get it, still it is very good exercise.
Andy knocked up a great evening meal of steak with vegetables and mashed potato, yummy. It was a lovely piece of steak too, nice and tender, probably local. We had green beans and carrots, which were all lovely and tender.
We did a little bit of preparation for packing up and moving on in the morning, I had some emails to write as I had some work stuff to clear up in England and then it was bedtime.
The evening was cool, but again bed was lovely and snug.
Until tomorrow bloggers
The T's
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david kennedy
non-member comment
hmas sydney
I would take the official version of the sinking as open to query. The present inquiry will nort finish the debate. Cheers. David