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Bustling into Busselton
A three day stay at this seaside town, and a walk along the longest jetty in Australia made a pleasant stay. I had a swim in the parks pool, which was heated to a very nice 34 degrees. Breaststroking up and down with all t he other grey haired nomads.
The jetty is well worth the walk, even though rain threatened to drench us, we made it to the end of the Pier. There’s an underwater aquarium out there, but it was very murky and green and the visibility would have been minimal. There’s a train out and back, if you don’t want to walk it. But, it was very invigorating, breathing in the sea air.
New Norcia home of the Benedictine Monks
It is certainly a wonderful sight when you drive right through the centre of these beautiful buildings.
There are eight monks in residence at this spectacular monastery set out in the back blocks of the West Australian countryside, but we catch only a glimpse of one of them while we are here. You can stay at the monastary, and eat with the monks, but don't expect
any conversation as it is a silent order. The monastary, with the statue of St Benedict is not open to the public of course.
The tour was good, even though walking among these buildings makes you think that life would have been very hard for the children who lived and worked here. Especially the laundry which must have been a nightmare, washing and ironing everything for the large number of people who found themselves in this place.
I have no photos to show you of the art gallery, as my camera was confiscated at the door, and given back when I left. They had a robbery a few years ago and security is important. The robbers cut the paintings out of their frames. They were recovered, but one was lost as it was so badly damaged.The paintings were interesting and the museum also. I saw the smallest Oxford Dictionary, with its own magnifying glass. Smaller than a matchbox!
The tour of the buildings went for two hours and was well worth it, being able to go into all of the chapels, and several other buildings. The Abbey church was very impressive. They make their own bread there
that they sell in the gift shop, but we didn’t get a taste of that at $8s a loaf. The highway goes right through the middle of these buildings, and the huge volume of traffic, and massive loads of mining machinery on trucks must have an impact. All day and night the rumble never stopped. We camped behind the roadhouse and the rain poured down most of the night, turning the ground into a red mix of watery clay.
It was an enjoyable day, and we left there about two, getting over to the town of Moora, a nice little rural town. My telephone decided to pack it in after we left the monastery, you should have seen the way it was behaving. I think it was possessed by the devil, going off its head, buzzing and flashing through everything that was on it. It went through all the messages until it finally switched itself off! New phone at Moora.
Leeman
Down to the coast and into Jurien Bay, looks very nice, but the caravan park is full, and we will have to go to Green Head, the next town up. But, no one wants to answer
the phone there, and when we drive in no one comes out to help us, so we go on again to Leeman. Lovely lady here in the office, and we decide to stay a week, it’s a long weekend, and accommodation is hard to get. On Sunday we go down to Cervantes; they are having a 50year celebration of their town and have a market. I stock up on some new reading material, and we also meet up with two of our companions, Dick and Barry. They are having the weekend out of Perth where they are staying, and have come up this way to meet up with us. After a nice morning tea with them, they are on their way back to the city and we go to The Pinnacles.
The Pinnacles, are very impressive, and we spend some time walking about between these pointy rocks. There are lots of people here and signs say “Do not climb on the pinnacles”! Too pointy for us, we leave it to the kids. Hope you enjoy the photos of these and New Norsia.
Next day we go to The Lesueur National Park, it’s like a hidden valley, inland from
Green Head. The vegetation is amazing where there are bottlebrush and kangaroo paw, and other flowering plants that I dont know the name of. I failed to find the black kangaroo paw, a rare one. It was really beautiful if you like plants, and the National Park has done a great job in the way they have set it up. A one way 18kilometre sealed road with plenty of room to stop and have a close look at the natural surroundings. Also a lovely picnic area and several walks, the one to Mt Lesusueur was a 4kilometre walk, a bit too far for us to attempt. The rugged landscape of the park is surprising, it’s not that far away from the sandy dunes of the coast road and as you can see it's a beautiful day.
We are catching up with some chores, at our park in Leeman for the next couple of days and then we are, “On the Road Again.”
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