Sun 13 Oct 2013 - Searching for surf

The wind had dropped this morning, so we packed up quickly and went down to Jaques Pt (most call it Jacks Point).  Surf was clean and pumping at 8-10ft but very fast in the barrell and quite a few wipeouts - so as I wasn't ready to wipe out my only board or myself, I decided to take some photos instead.

We went back to the camping ground and had showers and breakfast and then went to church. It was an Anglican Church and a traditional communion service and I really enjoyed it, it's a long time since I've heard all those prayers but they're good ones. The Minister gave an excellent talk and there were 2 hymns about the beauty of God's creation, which was extremely relevant to us as we've been enjoying it so much these past few weeks.

Over morning tea, I (Mel) mentioned to some of the women that we'd seen heaps of pretty cream blossom on the way in and asked them what it was. They said that it's called "Smelly Socks". I thought I must have misheard but they told me that, although it looks lovely, on warm Oct evenings it smells horrible.

Before we left Kalbarri, we went to see some unusual rock formations on the coast. They were called "Island Rock" and "Natural Bridge".

Along the sides of the road the wattle was in blossom and we soon saw an amazing site, a lake that was bright pink! It looked absolutely stunning with white sand, a strip of turquoise water and then the band of fluoro pink. Apparently a bacteria gets trapped in the salt particles in the salt lake and makes beta carotene, which gives the pink colour, just like flamingos.

The town near the lake was Port Gregory, it used to be a cray fishing town and there were still some cray boats in the small harbour. It was a pretty and sleepy little town.

After this, the landscape changed considerably and became tame and Southern, gentle rolling hills with patchwork fields of crops. We passed through an old town with some lovely old houses, called Northampton and soon after that, found we were approaching Geraldton.

Much to our surprise, the Visitor's Centre was open and the lady was most helpful. First we visited the Lighthouse which had been imported from England and is red and white stripes. Next to it was a miniature version that is actually the beach shower in disguise!

It was interesting to see an old sailing craft coming through the channel to tie up at the wharf.

Again we went and checked out all the possible surf beaches but all of them were blown out as the wind was very strong by now. This took us so far South that we decided it would be senseless to go back into Geraldton so we continued on down the Brand Highway and came to a small place called Greenough, where they hold surf championships at Flat Rock, but it was also blown out – nice spot for the judging panel though.

The prevailing wind here is from the South so a lot of the trees are growing horizontally rather than upwards.

At this point, we decided to call it a day and set up in a nearby camping ground for the night. For the first time ever, the ground here is soft spongy grass, no more red dust! The wind was pretty wild by now – 35-40 knots. Somehow Rodger managed to keep the steaks on the BBQ, but we had to eat inside the van. As the sites here are all powered, we decided to make use of it and watched a movie called "Six Days and Seven Nights" on the computer.