The Same Sights?

So something happened over the past fortnight. It wasn’t deliberate, and it wasn’t a choice. But it has changed, and can’t be reversed.

After seeing roughly 6,000km of coastline, we’ve become, well, picky. Discerning might be a nicer way to put it.

I’m not sure exactly when it happened. We didn’t notice it as we explored the history of shipwrecks on the West coast of Australia from the early 1600s onwards. Geraldton was home to fascinating history, including that of the Batavia, where we admired authentic silver coins from the East India Trading Company, recovered from a shipwreck that was also the the site of Australia’s first mutiny and known mass murder.

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Our pickiness didn’t strike in Kalbarri, where the rocks were layered upon one another in endless shades of red. The river gorges were muddy, flowing with waters from tropical cyclone Joyce which hit much of the 82,000km2 catchment area. This allowed us to see a snapshot of the erosive power of these rivers over millions of years, but the raging water made canoeing down them an impossibility. We consoled ourselves with incredibly red outcrops and a view that continued to impress.

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It also didn’t strike when we Shell Beach, an entirely white beach comprised of up to 7,000 cockle shells per square metre, up to 10 metres deep. These cockle shells are one of the only things that lives on the northern side of the Shark Bay peninsula, with Much if the sea life the area is known for being further out at Monkey Mia, or on the southern side of the peninsula. The north east is incredibly salty due to an undersea shelf restricting outflow of seawater, leaving incoming seawater nowhere to go except evaporate and leave behind salt.

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But it did strike when we went to Monkey Mia, and stood on the shore as rangers selected three visitors to feed a couple of wild dolphins. Each session consisted of 10 minutes of lecturing about standing on the shoreline, not putting your toes in the water, not putting hands up and smiling nicely to be chosen. Though we were just two metres from the dolphins at some stages, this could not match our Whyalla experience of kayaking with dolphins.  

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It also struck after being amazed by the maritime history in Geraldton. As well as the shipwrecks from the 16th century onwards, the museum was awash with information on the HMAS Sydney II, which was lost at sea when it clashed with the Kormoran on 19 November 1941. The Kormoran was a German mine laying subterfuge ship, that deliberately flew false flags to impersonate other vessels. After the Sydney drew close attempting to identify the true identity of the vessel, the Kormoran raised their guns and fired, with the bridge of the Sydney immediately taken out and delaying their returning fire.  Ultimately, the Sydney did return fire and both ships were sunk, and the lives of all men on the Sydney lost.

After leaving Geraldton with such strong regard, and paying our respects, we then went on to hear the story again and again. Each town up the cost echoed the story, with a slightly paler representation for the tourist crowd. Each retelling felt a little more hollow.

Our pickiness peaked in Carnarvon, a town less than it once had been. The jetty had a history to tell of farming trade and aboriginal deportation to offshore islands, but was shut a decade ago due to safety concerns. The padlocked chainlink fence around the lighthouse museum made a lie of the dust covered ’open’ sign. Stage 1 of the mangrove boardwalk contained snippets of information, in varying stages of wear after 10 years without maintenance. The boardwalk proclaimed that stage two was ‘coming soon’, a promise expired with the closing of the jetty.

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And this struck again at the stromatolites, close descendants of the first microbial organisms to grow on land and pump oxygen into the atmosphere. Amazing in themselves, but we had been amazed by their freshwater variants, Thrombolites, only weeks before at Lake Clifton, south of Perth. Had seen all the highlights of Australia and the rest of the trip was to be a repeat of beaches, jetties, dolphins, and plaques?

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I put this down to a combination of travel fatigue, having had some amazing experiences, coming out from a bad cold, and a nomadic lifestyle becoming the norm, rather than a novelty.

And so, somewhat weary, we landed in Coral Bay. Based on what information we had heard, we decided to set down our roots and stay in one spot for a week, the longest single stop of our trip so far. As we hung the ignition key up for the next week, we hoped that the week ahead of swimming with whale sharks and training for our SCUBA licenses, might renew the trip.

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This week’s struggle was the rattles. The rattles! Think about that rattle in your car, the one you just can’t find and fix. Now add to that single rattle the shaking of your pantry, your laundry, your crockery and cutlery drawers. Everything chimes in as you start to pick up speed above 40km/hr. Your options are to ignore it, or try and resolve them all, one by one. We haven’t found our happy balance between these options yet 🙂