Our Transwa Coach/6 hour/1 Stop Ride to Geraldton
Long flat road, but senic drive
Our home for 2 weeks
Geralton has some beautiful beach's
Trillions and Trillions of small Clam Shells
100 Kms of shells up to 10 meters deep
Shell Sculpture
Emu along the side of the road to the Dolphins
Dolphins up close
Feeding the Dolphins
Pink Lake
Blue Parrot
Blog #4 – Geraldton
Our 6 hour trip on the bus from Perth went faster than we thought and was quite comfortable. We were met by Phil and Maureen who took us to their home for our next exchange. It is quite comfortable, but quite noisy as a main street passes the house. It's hot, as we expected, 32 – 37, fortunately there is an almost constant stiff breeze (wind?) so it blows through the house....thankfully because the A/C did not work very well!
Geraldton is about 30,000 people, and on the coast. Again lovely beaches and all the facilities you need. This is a deep water port shipping iron ore, fertilizer and whatever else they mine in the interior. Rumor says it's on it's way to being a boom town as there are a number of new mine's in the development stages.. The harbor is quite shallow, so it has a dredged channel for the ships to come through. We can see them from the house as we are only a block and a half from the ocean, and the tugs seem to be with them for a couple of miles.
As in other parts of Australia, we have been warned by locals not to drive at dusk or after dark as there is a real danger of hitting a kangaroo.
We drove about 400 km north to the Shark Bay (yes there are sharks, no we didn't see any) to a place called Monkey Mia where the wild dolphins come into shore for a fish treat. Interaction with them is no longer allowed, which was a disappointment but it still was wonderful to be within a few feet of them and actually look them in the eye. There were about 12 of the beautiful creatures who swam back out from the bay as soon as a couple of fish were handed out.
We booked a motel off the internet. It was unbelievable. A little rickety cottage where nothing worked but at least the bed was comfortable. All this for “only” $110. per night.
On the way there, we did visit a beach which was made entirely of small shells shaped like a clam shell but only about the size of your little finger nail. It was unbelievable. There is 110 km of shell beach and they are more than 10 meters deep. There are buildings in the town of Denham, made of building blocks of shells, as the shells away from the salt water have had the salt leached out, and can be mixed with cement to hold them together.
On the way back toward Geraldton we saw a Pink Lake. The sign says it is caused by beta carotene, like carrots, but this was definitely pink. Hopefully the pictures will show the color of the water. There are a couple of processing plants on the lake shore, recovering the chemicals.
The next night we stayed in Kalberri a resort area about 125kms north oif Geraldton, and found a great room, for $75 Regularly $262.
One of the attractions of the town was to see the Seahorse Breeding Stable. Cute, eh? Well they were closed up, so we went to where there were tropical birds in a “free flying jungle setting” It was a lovely jungle setting of tropical plants but their idea of free flying meant within cages. I was some miffed (lil) as I feel birds shouldn't be in cages. Ah well, you can 't expect all to be perfect.
The rest of the trip back to Geraldton was fine, in fact we saw several emus along the side of the road. The land is very flat with miles of straight road through red earth with shrubs no more than 4 feet high. The long flat and straight roads make travel fast, if not too interesting.
We have enjoyed Geraldton, it is the most northerly of the exchanges so it was a good chance to see that area.
We took a Skywest flight back to Perth, a 70 min flight so we could see this area from the air, suprisingly a lot of grain farms, not much mixed farming as the area is a drought area, the current one has lasted 6 years.
Next we will be off to South Vanderup, for those of you who may be following us on a map, it is actually very close to Mandurah, with the home being located on a man made canal off the Murray River.
Blog #4 – Geraldton
Our 6 hour trip on the bus from Perth went faster than we thought and was quite comfortable. We were met by Phil and Maureen who took us to their home for our next exchange. It is quite comfortable, but quite noisy as a main street passes the house. It's hot, as we expected, 32 – 37, fortunately there is an almost constant stiff breeze (wind?) so it blows through the house....thankfully because the A/C did not work very well!
Geraldton is about 30,000 people, and on the coast. Again lovely beaches and all the facilities you need. This is a deep water port shipping iron ore, fertilizer and whatever else they mine in the interior. Rumor says it's on it's way to being a boom town as there are a number of new mine's in the development stages.. The harbor is quite shallow, so it has a dredged channel for the ships to come through. We can see them from the house as we are only a block and a half from the ocean, and the tugs seem to be with them for a couple of miles.
As in other parts of Australia, we have been warned by locals not to drive at dusk or after dark as there is a real danger of hitting a kangaroo.
We drove about 400 km north to the Shark Bay (yes there are sharks, no we didn't see any) to a place called Monkey Mia where the wild dolphins come into shore for a fish treat. Interaction with them is no longer allowed, which was a disappointment but it still was wonderful to be within a few feet of them and actually look them in the eye. There were about 12 of the beautiful creatures who swam back out from the bay as soon as a couple of fish were handed out.
We booked a motel off the internet. It was unbelievable. A little rickety cottage where nothing worked but at least the bed was comfortable. All this for “only” $110. per night.
On the way there, we did visit a beach which was made entirely of small shells shaped like a clam shell but only about the size of your little finger nail. It was unbelievable. There is 110 km of shell beach and they are more than 10 meters deep. There are buildings in the town of Denham, made of building blocks of shells, as the shells away from the salt water have had the salt leached out, and can be mixed with cement to hold them together.
On the way back toward Geraldton we saw a Pink Lake. The sign says it is caused by beta carotene, like carrots, but this was definitely pink. Hopefully the pictures will show the color of the water. There are a couple of processing plants on the lake shore, recovering the chemicals.
The next night we stayed in Kalberri a resort area about 125kms north oif Geraldton, and found a great room, for $75 Regularly $262.
One of the attractions of the town was to see the Seahorse Breeding Stable. Cute, eh? Well they were closed up, so we went to where there were tropical birds in a “free flying jungle setting” It was a lovely jungle setting of tropical plants but their idea of free flying meant within cages. I was some miffed (lil) as I feel birds shouldn't be in cages. Ah well, you can 't expect all to be perfect.
The rest of the trip back to Geraldton was fine, in fact we saw several emus along the side of the road. The land is very flat with miles of straight road through red earth with shrubs no more than 4 feet high. The long flat and straight roads make travel fast, if not too interesting.
We have enjoyed Geraldton, it is the most northerly of the exchanges so it was a good chance to see that area.
We took a Skywest flight back to Perth, a 70 min flight so we could see this area from the air, suprisingly a lot of grain farms, not much mixed farming as the area is a drought area, the current one has lasted 6 years.
Next we will be off to South Vanderup, for those of you who may be following us on a map, it is actually very close to Mandurah, with the home being located on a man made canal off the Murray River.
