This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Monthly Archives: April 2019


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2004 Travels June 11

FRIDAY 11 JUNE     GREENOUGH

John’s face was more swollen this morning.

After breakfast, we went for a walk to the river mouth/sandbar. That was pleasant.

Late in the afternoon, John decided he should see a doctor. There were none still open when he tried to phone private practices in Geraldton. So, it was back to Casualty.

This time, John really wanted me to stay inside with him. The time passed really slowly, as we sat around for two and a half hours. Eventually, John saw a young African doctor. He said the previous two diagnoses had been wrong. But he was not sure exactly what the issue was! It might be a blocked parotid gland. Only a scan would tell. They could do that on Monday. But, if it was that, he would have to go to Perth for treatment.

We decided we might as well go back to Perth anyway and see if the problem can be properly sorted out there. John was by now not confident in the Geraldton medical services – and I was totally underwhelmed!

This trip really was not working out as intended.

We would drive back on Sunday – no point in rushing to do so tomorrow, as it would be after the weekend before medical appointments could be made.

I made a drambuie and cream sauce for our crayfish tonight – delicious.


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2004 Travels June 10

THURSDAY 10 JUNE      GREENOUGH

After breakfast, it was back into Geraldton again, so John could do a tour of the cray fishing factory that he’d found out about yesterday. I did not want to do it – would feel too sorry for the crayfish!

John said the tour was great and he learned a lot about the Geraldton based industry. He also bought two crays – cooked! They would be for tea tomorrow, as I had prawns for tonight.

Whilst in a “tourist” frame of mind, drove across town to view the memorial to the “Sydney”. This was an Australian battleship that was sunk in late 1941, by the German vessel “Kormoran”, off the coast of this part of WA. Geraldton was the last Australian port the “Sydney” visited, before being lost at sea. Plans for this memorial took shape in the 1990’s, and it was dedicated in 2001 – on the 60th anniversary of the Sydney’s loss.

The memorial was most impressive. To begin with, it was high on a hill – Mt Scott – overlooking the town and the sea. Its central feature was a dome shape, made up of an open weave pattern of silver seagulls – 645 of them, to represent the 645 men lost on the Sydney. In older times, it was believed that the souls of drowned sailors lived on in seagulls, hence the symbolism.

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Apart from the dome, there was a very evocative sculpture of a woman waiting, looking out to sea. The intent of this was obvious.

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Watching….. waiting……

I was very glad that we had made the effort to at least see this place, even if we hadn’t done much else around here.

After lunch back at the van, drove to the Greenough Woodworks Gallery. We were not particularly impressed with what was on show there. I thought John’s work was as good as what we saw there – whereas in the galleries we visited down in the south-west, there was much that was clearly better than he could do.

I made honey prawns for tea – excellent.


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2004 Travels June 9

WEDNESDAY 9 JUNE     GREENOUGH

We drove back into Geraldton again. Fortunately, it was only about 20kms away.

Walked around looking at the fishing harbour area. It was much bigger than we’d expected – most impressive. Hadn’t known that Geraldton was base for a fishing industry, but discovered that the crayfish season was really significant here.

We bought some fresh fish and prawns at the fish co-op.

Back at camp, I texted daughter, offering her the back part of our house to live in. I was trying to head off a Bendigo move!


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2004 Travels June 8

TUESDAY 8 JUNE     GREENOUGH

Today was a very wet and windy one. We were still not far enough north for good weather, it seemed.

I was still miserable. John was looking no better and was not feeling well. He was not sure how much of that was real and how much was because he should maybe feel sick. It was all quite strange.

We drove back into Geraldton – the shops would be open again. Went food shopping and I changed Library books. Had been doing quite a bit of reading whilst we had been spendiung time at the van.

We were really just waiting here for John to show signs of improvement, before we headed off again.


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2004 Travels June 7

MONDAY 7 JUNE     GREENOUGH

John’s face was no better this morning. We decided to drive into Geraldton so he could go to Casualty and have the face checked out.

It was a long weekend, with less traffic in town, so finding the hospital was easier than it would have been on a normal day.

I am not a fan of emergency rooms, especially on a public holiday, so sent John off to wait and take his turn with the medico on duty, whilst I waited in the healthier environment of truck. No point in two of us being exposed to assorted, possibly contagious, ailments!

The diagnosis this time was an infected parotid gland. The remedy – a stronger anti-biotic.

We refuelled Truck – $1.04cpl.

Whilst in the town, we took the opportunity to check out a couple of the caravan parks there. John was looking ahead to when the Olympic Games would be on. He was determined that we should be somewhere, then, that had good TV reception. Whilst our park at Greenough was pleasant enough, the TV was pretty marginal, so it wouldn’t meet John’s expectations. This was a repeat of what happened in 2000, that saw us end up in hot, dusty, boring Karratha, for the Olympics then.

Either of the parks we checked out – one near the port area and one on the coast on the north side of town – would be alright to stay at, in terms of their apparent quality and surrounds, if their TV situation checked out.

In checking these out, we drove along the foreshore roads, just looking at the town in that area. Geraldton is a small city of some 30,000 people, so there was variety in both land uses and ages of the sections we passed through.

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Geraldton – and rain

Neither of us was particularly cheerful today – John affected by his health, I was depressed about my daughter.


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2004 Travels June 6

SUNDAY 6 JUNE     GREENOUGH

John’s face had become even more swollen. It was a worry. We didn’t know whether this was part of the supposedly blocked Eustachian Tube, or whether there was something else going on. He didn’t really know whether he felt well, or not.

We just stayed around the van all day. John wanted to rest, and I read.

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Our site at Greenough River Caravan Park

I phoned daughter to tell her of money transfer, and ended up getting really cross with her current plan to move back to Bendigo, where it seemed she had a relationship developing. My concern was for the impacts this would have on grandson, especially due to regular commuting between mother and father. He would grow up thinking home was the inside of a car! But there was no reasoning with her, though.


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2004 Travels June 5

SATURDAY 5 JUNE     GREENOUGH

After rather a late start, and breakfast, we drove into Geraldton. This was a place that had really grown, and was quite hard to navigate around.

A trip to the Information Centre was necessary – if only so I could get a detailed map to help get around the place!

Then it was to the Library, where John tried to access the Internet, but afte much fiddling around, couldn’t. He actually said I could try to borrow some books while waiting for him! The Library staff were very nice, and helpful, so I was able to borrow some novels. As I’d also been able to buy a Weekend Australian, would now have a lovely lot of reading matter.

We bought rolls to fill for lunch, then headed back to the van.

At the caravan park, the lovely, helpful, boss lady let John plug into her phone and access the Internet that way. He transferred the loan money to daughter.

After a late lunch, we walked down to the bar across the river mouth. It was pleasant walking along the road that runs beside the inlet – cottages on one side and the river on the other, and no traffic to speak of.

The sand barrier was a substantial one. We could walk right across it, so the river was fully blocked off.

John’s face seemed to be swelling up on the left side, in front of his ear and down the jaw line!


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2004 Travels June 4

FRIDAY 4 JUNE    PERTH TO GREENOUGH  460kms

The day began with yet another text from daughter wanting to borrow more money, as her Centrelink payments had still not commenced. Not the best start to the day!

Packed up and headed north, cutting across to Highway 1.

At Muchea, took the Great Northern Highway through Bindoon and New Norcia. I had planned that we would be able to stop and look around at New Norcia, which we hadn’t managed to do on previous trips. But John was not in the mood and just wanted to keep driving.

The buildings of this small town – essentially a Benedictine community – looked really impressive, from what I could see as we drove through. I was really cross and disappointed at not being able to do even a cursory explore.

At Walebing, turned off the highway towards Moora. Until then, there had been a lot of truck traffic on the road, but now we were away from that.

Then it was through Mingenew and back to Highway 1 at Dongara. The roundabout route through New Norcia – which in the end was rather pointless – had added an unnecessary 80 odd kms to our trip.

John put in 30 litres of diesel at Moora – for $1.12cpl. We pulled onto the side of the road in the spread-out township and ate our sandwiches, stretched the legs by walking around the rig, had a cup of tea made from my thermos supplies.

We had decided to stay just south of Geraldton, at the Greenough Rivermouth Caravan Park, rather than in the more urban environments of Geraldton.

We were doing a tour of the WA Top Tourist Parks, it seemed! This one cost $16.80 a night, after discount.

As the name suggested, this park was almost by the beach, and close to the Greenough River, which was banked back by sand at the mouth to be fairly wide, just here. It was a pleasant environment, and the park looked adequate, although there were a goodly number of permanents.

It had been a long day. There was a headwind for most of the way. Squalls of rain had set in. It was a relief to be stopped for the day.

The caravan park office was also a bit of a general store, and they sold fish and chips – so that was our tea taken care of.

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2004 Travels June 3

THURSDAY 3 JUNE     PERTH

Mid morning, left to drive north to Yanchep National Park, only some 30kms away. Our plan was to do some walking there and find a pleasant place to eat our sandwich lunch.

Yanchep National Park was not quite what I was expecting. It was much more developed than a National Park should be! However, we were able to walk around the main lake – improbably called Loch McNess! This walk of nearly 3kms took us into the expected bushland and was enjoyable, even if there was no real sense of being away from it all. Had our sandwiches sitting in the more groomed park area.

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In Yanchep National Park

Refuelled Truck at Yanchep – $1 per litre.

On the drive back, bought some fruit and vegies from roadside stalls. Then stopped off at Joondalup and did a grocery shop.

John’s ear was really no better. The Busselton doctor had said it could take a couple of weeks to fix. He had been taking the anti-biotics prescribed.

I wondered about the origins of the apparent string of fresh water lakes that seemed to parallel the coast through Perth’s northern suburbs and further – were they related to coastal dune formation, or the product of a high water table, or impervious soils, or what?


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2004 Travels June 2

WEDNESDAY 2 JUNE     PERTH

Pottered about through much of the morning, then set out to go to lunch with the parents-in-law at their home at Sorrento. It wasn’t far for us to drive. Stopped on the way and bought flowers and a nice Brown Brothers red wine.

We had a very pleasant time there, at L and F’s. They have great views from their place – across to Rottnest Island and can see south along the coast to Fremantle. It must look wonderful at night.

Mid-afternoon, made our farewells. Drove along the coast to the new Hillarys Marina, that F had mentioned. Parked and walked around there, looking at some very expensive boats.

Completed a round about drive through that part of the northern suburbs, following the coast up to Mullaloo, then across to Beldon and then back on the freeway to Balcatta. Stopped off at the shopping centre to collect my photos. I also bought an album to put them in.

Went for a short walk around the back part of the caravan park.