31st August 2013
We are still here at Geraldton, with
continued inclement weather we couldn’t see the sense in heading off into country
areas on a wildflower trip. As Nancy put it, she doesn’t fancy sloshing around
in paddocks gathering mud.
Although the caravan park empties and
re-fills daily with travellers that have booked ahead we were fortunate enough
to extend our time here until next Monday when the forecast indicates some
improvement with the weather. In the meantime we have visited a few of the
local attractions that amongst other things includes an excellent museum that
has a focus on the wreck of the Batavia, a conducted tour of the lobster
industry and a visit to the ill-fated HMAS Sydney memorial, sunk off Geraldton
by a German raider in the second world war.
As a matter of interest no doubt a lot of
you will know about or have heard about the history of the Batavia wreck in
1629 on Mornington Reef in the Houtman Abrolhos, with 322 people on board.
Apart from the horrific events that ensued through murderous acts by members of
the ships crew, it also forms an important part of our Australian history.
Numerous historical facts have been researched and established and are
documented relating to the Batavia.
If you are interested in a very intriguing
story, Peter Fitzsimons book ‘Batavia’,
is a very good and easy reading Novel form of the story as to what took
place, set in the time period. Peter
researched an enormous amount of reference work to ensure the story he has put
together is as factual as can possibly be and it is probably as close to what
transpired realistically. – I recommend
it
We are off on Monday hopefully by then the
weather pattern will have eased as forecast and rapidly improve during the
week. At the moment just as we think it is improving and the sun comes out for
a while, it buckets down again, which sees Nancy racing off to rescue her
washing as I batten down the hatches.
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