Golf marathon ends in Ceduna

From Ceduna in South Australia, a Happy New Year to everyone!

We hope you finished the year on a good note and are optimistic about 2010.

Carol teeing off at the Dingo's Den hole near the Nullabor Roadhouse.

We're celebrating a big achievement: completion of the Nullabor Links, at 1,365 kilometres, the world's longest golf course.

We say goodbye to our vannie friends Wendy, Greg, Tony and Maureen in Perth.

The 'course', developed by Eyre Highway retailers, provides 18 holes designated at various roadhouses and towns from Kalgoorlie to Ceduna.

The unusual exercise broke up an otherwise long and tedious trip. But we must confess it's not an easy way to play golf.

The tee points are neatly set up on artificial grass beside a shelter shed, with a storyboard on local history to add interest.

Wave Rock, seen en route to Esperance.

The greens are mostly artificial grass and extremely fast. Unless you can emulate Greg Norman's back swing, you'll likely skid off into the undergrowth among the snakes and wombats.

But oh, the fairways! To call them goat tracks would be doing goats an injustice. Some were little more than patches of mulga.

Hay bales en route to Esperance.

But it was fun, even in temperatures reaching into the 40s and bush and march flies attacking from all quarters. For convenience we shared one set of clubs comprising a driver, 5-iron, 7-iron, wedge and putter.

Our cards, which cost $50 each, were duly stamped by roadhouse operators along the way. We won't mention our scores, but let's say they were well over the course's par 72.

We have to congratulate Carol for finishing, despite suffering unrelenting asthma contracted in Esperance -- more of that later.

Esperance was sublime

Vannies are often asked which place is the best they've visited. It's a hard question to answer.

View of Esperance from the west.

How do you compare, for example, Broome with the Gold Coast, the Kimberleys with Dunk Island, or Kakadu with the Whitsundays? All are exciting and memorable in their own way.

However, we found one place a standout. That is Esperance (pop. 30,000), facing Western Australia's southern ocean.

An unexpected warning sign.

Not the town itself, which is pleasant enough with its cafes and restaurants, port and intriguing Recherche Archipelago clearly visible a few kilometres offshore, and the frequent appearance of a sea lion that flip flops up the beach near a jetty frequented by fishermen.

What astonished us was the visually stunning coastline east and west of the town.

A regular visitor.

It's the grandeur and the colours: the sea changing from midnight blue to turquoise and emerald as it approaches and sloshes against white beaches and grey granite landforms shaped over millennia, and the lush hinterland speckled with wildflowers.


All can be enjoyed via a scenic roadway and viewing bays, access paths and stairways to the beach.

Esperance can be hot, windy and cold -- all in one day -- but when the time is right, a swim at any one of dozens of beaches is just sublime.

Twilight Beach.

We felt at Twilight Beach it was like swimming in lemonade, so deliciously cool and clear was the water.



Beach at Cape le Grand.

We found more spectacular scenery a short drive east in the national park at Cape le Grand and at Duke of Orleans Bay, places that will live long in our memory.

Why the French names, you may ask?

Large and unusual rock formation at Cape le Grand.

It turns out the French Frigates Le Recherche, commanded by Bruni d'Entrecasteaux and l'Esperance (commanded by Huon de Kermadec) sought shelter from a storm in the archipelago in 1792. Their mission was to do scientific research and search for the lost explorer La Perouse, whom they never found.

(The French Revolution was under way, but England's war with France would not commence until the following year).

Singing Rock at Cape le Grand, which deflects the sound of the waves at you.

We should add that credit for the first European visitor goes to (no prizes for guessing) a Dutchman: Pieter Nuyts, who sailed the Guide Zeepaard there in 1627, but did not actually land.






Duke of Orleans Bay.










Cape Barron geese at Esperance Golf Course where we played a round.




Gold! Gold! Gold!

Our departure from Esperance was delayed when Carol had an asthma attack accompanied by persistent coughing.

Exchange Hotel, Kalgoorlie.

We parked the van outside the local hospital and Carol was put on a nebuliser and had an x-ray. She was given some medication by a nurse practitioner and cleared for travel.

So off we went on a brief visit to gold mining town Kalgoorlie, 394km north via Norseman (the junction for travellers taking the Eyre Highway to and from South Australia) across the Nullabor.

Kalgoorlie is everything you've heard about. It's colourful and busy, with lots of old-style pubs and yes, brothels that are part of the town's tradition.

But what really surprised us was the number of large holes -- big gold mining holes -- that are everywhere around Kalgoorlie, from Norseman to Leonora.

The biggest is the Super Pit, an open cut mine 4km long, 1.5km wide and 600m deep that looks like the Grand Canyon, and is mined day and night by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM).

Kalgoorlie's Super Pit. The tiny specks on the roadway are massive ore trucks.

The Super Pit is the end result of an attempt by Alan Bond to buy up and consolidate a conglomeration of individual leases that once made up the famed Golden Mile, and create one big mine.

Giant mining bucket at the Super Pit.

It was interesting to see the pipeline designed buy Charles O'Connor and built in 1903 to bring water more than 600km from Mundaring Weir near Perth to Kalgoorlie. It's still regarded as the lifeline to the gold fields.

(O'Connor suicided by shooting himself at Fremantle Beach a year before the pipeline was completed -- a terrible end for a brilliant engineer who apparently was subject to criticism by press, politicians and peers for no good reason).

Carol was fascinated by an apocryphal story about a woman who went for a pee on the roadside and washed the dust off something shiny that turned out to be a $300,000 nugget.

She wanted to rush out and hire a metal detector to try her luck.

I flatly refused to cooperate, a) because it was too hot, b) because there wasn't time and c) because you wouldn't know where to start looking. But she could go for a pee if she liked.

We had a brief look at Coolgardie, once a twin of Kalgoorlie but now just a tourist stop and almost a ghost town.

It's said that during the gold rush blocks in North Toorak, a suburb of Coolgardie, cost the pounds equivalent of almost $30,000 in the 1800s.

Warden's Court, Coolgardie

Today the suburb no longer exists and is described as 'arid land'. How fortunes can change!

As temperatures neared the 40s we had Christmas lunch hosted by the caravan park manager in a shady spot. As is the protocol, you brought your own chair and grog. We sat around a table of chicken, salad and nibbles.

The guests comprised a dozen vannies, 'permanents' and transient workers, all in singlets and shorts, who could have been mistaken for extras from some bizarre outback movie.

It was the first time we'd spent Christmas away from family. We left the lunch when they started telling 'abo' jokes.

Nullabor nightmare

After playing our first two holes of Nullabor golf in Kalgoorlie we hit the road on 27 December on a run that would take us across three time zones: Perth, Central Western and South Australian time.

Sculpture of the horse at Norseman that uncovered gold with his hoof, starting a gold rush.

After 400km we stayed overnight at Balladonia Roadhouse where we met a delightful couple, Nerilyn and Dennis from Rockhampton with whom later we would party on New Year's Eve in Ceduna.

Cliffs near Eucla on the Great Australian Bight.

We were now well and truly on the Nullabor crossing. The next stretch to Eucla included the longest 'straight' in Australia -- 90 miles or 141km. I must say the Eyre Highway is a fantastic piece of road, but you wouldn't want to break down in the heat between roadhouses that can be 200km apart.

At Eucla we inquired about medical assistance for Carol's cough, which was getting worse. The Flying Doctor, we were told, visited every week on a Wednesday. It being Tuesday, we decided not to wait and instead drive the 500km to Ceduna, which has a hospital and doctor.

I should mention that the Eucla Roadhouse is set on a ridge overlooking the Great Australian Bight and gets a cooling ocean breeze. The roadhouse provides power but no water for individual vans. You pay a dollar for a shower.

Eight kilometres on, just across the South Australian border, is a roadhouse with a sign that reads, 'Please do not ask for water as refusal often offends'. A joke it may be, but water is a scarce commodity in these parts.

As we all know, Nullabor is Latin (nulla arbor) for no trees. There are a few trees in some parts but when you arrive at the Nullabor Roadhouse there really are no trees: nothing but spinifex and mulga for miles.

After battling a headwind for 200km (that reduced our speed to 80km/hour) we made it into Ceduna, a town that reminds me of Carnarvon. I dropped Carol at the hospital and set up the van nearby at the Foreshore Caravan Park.

After a brief checkup, Carol was asked to call back the following day and report to the doctor at the Aboriginal Health Centre.

In the meantime, I got talking to a young guy with a black beard and only one top tooth camped nearby in a tent with his motorcycle in pieces. He told how his rear wheel bearings started disintegrating just out of the Nullabor Roadhouse.

Somehow he managed to get the back wheel going, moved his weight forward by sitting on the fuel tank and managed to limp into Ceduna virtually riding the front wheel.

Later he noticed Carol was using her asthma puffer and asked that if she were having a 'bong', could he come over and join us. Hmmm!

At the Health Centre the following day (when the temperature reached 44 deg) while I was waiting for Carol to emerge, an elderly Aboriginal woman with hair dyed pink came in.

Suddenly we heard a rooster crowing and she yelled: "Shut up!" and reached into her bag. I fully expected her to drag a cockerel out by the neck but instead she produced a mobile phone and began a conversation.

Every day is a new experience.

More news soon including an update on Carol's condition.

Perth presents a pretty (affluent) picture

It's always a delight when travelling the country to reconnect with people you haven't seen for a long time.

After spending time on the south coast of Western Australia as far as Albany, we backtracked 420 kilometres to Perth for 10 days.

Carol took time out to fly back to Sydney for a scheduled medical checkup.

Jordan waiting to take the field.

I tracked down family friend Merelyn Kelly's son Jordan, a promising cricketer doing an apprenticeship in Perth with his dad Jack Mast, one of Perth's top painting contractors (Port Macquarie-based Merelyn and her sprightly mum were featured in our March blog).

At this point I should mention that Jordan was first introduced to cricket at age six playing with our grandchildren, especially Luke, also six, in the driveway of our home in Hunters Hill, using a dustbin for wickets.

Back then Luke's dad Jeff Mannering took note of Jordan's natural action and gave him a big tick for the future.

Now both aged 18, Jordan and Luke are playing competition cricket, Jordan in Perth and Luke in Dubai.

Right and below, Jordan at the crease.

So on this leg of our trip it was a great joy to be able to watch Jordan score runs for Midland Guildford against Scarborough from the vantage point of the Scarborough clubhouse, with a cooling sea breeze waftong over the ground.

Unfortunately Jordan was caught for 28, but not until he'd demonstrated his prowess and smashed a few fours.

In the meantime, the surf was up at Scarborough Beach so that's where I finished up along with thousands of others escaping the 35 degree-heat.

The money's on Perth

I must say it was an eye opener rediscovering a city we hadn't visited for several years.

It doesn't take long to figure out that this is a very affluent part of the nation.

The magnificent homes, well maintained, well signposted streets, the beachside infrastructure and facilities, the busy shopping centres, the still evolving CBD landscape, all point to WA's earning power.

Hay Street Mall - clean and tidy with lots of restaurants serving mouth-watering Western and Asian food.

But there are some standout signifiers -- like the Burswood Casino.

We decided to watch the Danny Green v Roy Jones title fight there (before Carol departed for Sydney). Or rather I, bored by poker machines, would watch the fight, and Carol, bored by boxing, would play the pokies.

I have never seen such a crowd queuing up to pay upwards of $7.50 for a beer that would cost half that at a pub, and then squeezing in to a small precinct to watch the fight.

Perth's beautiful old Melbourne Hotel.

Like me they were after a bit of big-screen atmosphere I suppose. But then I looked around when it was all over and found the whole place chock-a-block with gamblers of all ages.

It tells me one thing -- a lot of people have a lot of money to burn.

By the way, was the first-round KO of Jones such a shock? Who in their right mind steps into the ring at age 40? Jones should have swapped his boxing gloves for gardenng gloves ages ago. And Green at age 36 should be contemplating that now.

Endearing Albany

Of great fascination visiting WA thus far has been the southwest and southern coasts, with their excellent beaches, pretty wildflower heathland, spectacular cliffs, and inland, giant old-growth forests.

Point D'Entrecasteaux, showing erosion of rocky outcrops by wind and rain.

No-one warned us about the winds and changeable temperatures, but you learn to live with them in these parts.

This is especially so at Windy Harbour, where we stayed a couple of days, from where we walked the trails around Point D'Entrecasteaux, a massive high cliff that offers a magnificent view of the rugged coastline on both sides.

Wildflowers on coastal heathland.

Of more than passing interest is that the van park at Windy Harbour is powered by two large banks of solar collectors linked to a large number of 48-volt batteries. Residents are discouraged from using appliance with elements.

From there to Peaceful Bay, where we spent three days 'at peace' including a diversion inland to do the Giant's Walk, which features a suspended steel walkway high among the tall Tingle Oak and Karri trees that protestors fought to protect against logging.

Walking trail at Point D'Entrecasteaux.

We found Albany (pop. over 30,000) of particular interest. With its colonial facades and absence of high-rise buildings, it reminded us of Brisbane in the 1950s.

At peace at Peaceful Bay.

The harbour - King George III Sound - is huge and truly spectacular, with the authorities having done a stirling job developing walks and trails, and protecting the bush environment from human and feral trespass.

In 1826 the British Government sent the brigantine Amity here from Sydney under the command of Major Edmund Lockyer to establish a military post and forestall French settlement.

Walking among the giants.

Although only 23 metres long, the brig carried around 50 people, including 19 soldiers and 23 convicts, and several animals. I went on board the replica and found I had to bend almost double to get around below decks. It must have been incredibly claustrophobic, stuffy and smelly for the passengers.

Also, to get the maggots out of the 'hard tack' (wheat based biscuit), they used to place it near a rotten fish. The maggots would climb out of the biscuit and head towards the fish, which would later be thrown overboard.

Replica of the brig Amity.

Albany (originally Frederickstown) later became a whaling station and was expected to be the capital of Western Australia, but eventually lost out to Perth.

Poet Henry Lawson, who worked on the local paper here, said:

'Albany will never change much - it is a pretty town, but vague. It seems to exist only in a somewhere-on-the-horizon sort of way; I like it all the better for that.'

Not much as changed since then!

York Street, Albany.

Finally we were told by all and sundry that we simply had to visit Little Beach, about 20 kilometres east of Albany, as it was without doubt the best beach in Australia.

So off we went, and yes, we agree it is a truly beautiful little beach. But we also felt the wind was so strong that any swimmers leaving the water would need to dry off quickly, or risk being frozen in their tracks.

Little Beach, near Albany.

Maybe we were there on the wrong day.

From Perth, we plan to head south east for Esperance, then north to Kalgoorlie, where we'll spend Christmas.

As this will be our last web log until the New Year, we'd like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and a Safe, and Prosperous New Year.

Happy Christmas also from Harleyboy (pictured). He and master Rossco Cornwall have been following our blog all the way from Cardwell in Queensland.

Quelle histoire! Interviewer interviewed

The boot was on the other foot, or rather, the microphone in another’s hand when a French TV documentary crew met the Dique Trippers.

Lunch with Roland Theron (right) and his cameraman Nicolas under our awning.

Roland Theron of Les Nouveaux Explorateurs is making a documentary on interesting and unusual Australian houses.

He felt his documentary would not be complete without a glimpse into the life of a ‘grey nomad’.

After shooting a piece on living underground in Coober Pedy, he was due to fly back to France via Alice Springs and Perth.

Prevelly Beach near Margaret River.

Marie Cortez, a former work colleague of mine, and part of the local French network, knew we were in WA and put him in touch with us.

We met at our van at Prevelly Beach, near Margaret River. Roland and his cameraman Nicolas kindly brought the makings for lunch.

In my last job I did video interviews with business leaders for posting on the web, so it felt a bit strange to have a camera pointed at me for a change.

Wildflowers, part of the coastal heath at Prevelly Beach.

Cooking up a story

In actual fact the star of the show was Carol, who not only answered the big questions, but was also closely videoed cooking lunch, in this case a tasty cheese omelette.

The best I could do was supply a bottle of local shiraz. Roland seemed unimpressed by the screw top instead of cork stopper, but I think he found the wine OK.

To sum up, we found Roland and Nicolas (who pointed his camera at every nook and cranny of our van, including the untidy bits) most engaging and charming, and we all had an enjoyable lunch.

Gardens at Walcliffe House on the Margaret River.

We finished off the day exploring a nearby mansion, Walcliffe House and its beautiful gardens on the Margaret River, where funds were being raised for the local fire service.

You can check out the people Roland interviewed at this site.

Out of the frying pan and into the fridge!

It’s amazing what a difference a few hundred kilometres can make.

After leaving Geraldton, the heat and continuous sunshine, we decided to bypass Perth, stay awhile at Margaret River and explore WA’s south western region before heading back to Perth.

Gale force winds knocked down this large tree, which narrowly missed an onsite van across from us.

We couldn’t believe the winds, the rainsqualls and the cold that greeted us! At night, where once we would sleep with barely a sheet over us, we found ourselves under blankets, doona and quilt. Outside it was colder than a witch's tit.

The wind was so strong it brought down a large tree that narrowly missed an on-site van.

Our Indian summer was well and truly over.

Having said that we bravely did get in some long walks, and found the coastal heath spectacular, with its purple, yellow, white and pink wildflowers.

We also managed to sneak in a game of golf.

Cruel Cape Leeuwin

A long-felt ambition has been to visit Cape Leeuwin, the extreme south west point of WA, where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean.

Hamelin Beach, en route to Augusta and Cape Leeuwin.

The place is named after the Dutch ship Leeuwin (Lioness) that rounded the cape in 1622.

It’s also where the great navigator Matthew Flinders commenced his circumnavigation of Terra Australis (Australia) in the Investigator on 7 December, 1801.

Cape Leeuwin lighthouse.

So down we went. It was blowing a gale when we arrived 50 kilometres later at the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, with continuous cold rainsqualls.

Carol wrapped herself in a blanket but took only 10 steps before returning to the car, collecting a refund of her entry fee on the way.

Forbidding Cape Leeuwin, where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean.

I don’t blame her. Spectacular though it may be, the Western Australian coast can be hostile and unforgiving.

Drenched and cold, I could see from the lighthouse (opened in 1896) the rocks, reefs and angry sea that made its construction essential.

After a perfunctory drive around the sleepy hamlet of Augusta, we headed back to Margaret River.

Where there’s a wine, there’s a way

Of course, we also managed to do a bit of wine tasting – how could we visit Margaret River and not do so!

I have to mention there’s currently a glut of wine making it immensely affordable.

At the Vasse Felix winery.

The problem I have with wine tasting is that I always feel compelled to buy a bottle of whatever I’ve liked (which is all of it), and usually come away loaded up with more than we really need or can stow.

Despite prodding from Carol on site to abandon this practice, our van toilet is now sharing space with a carton of shiraz, while bottles of semillon blanc, port and other delightful nectars have been forced into nooks and crevices that we never knew existed.

A Quick visit

Believe it or not, one of Carol’s distant relatives lives just five minutes drive from our van park at Prevelly Beach.

I refer to Gabrielle Adams, sister of well-known Brisbane based TV cameraman Paul Adams who is married to Carol’s niece Madonna.

Gabrielle, Molly, Carol and Kelsey (plus pet rats Olympia and Smash).

We called in to see Gabrielle, Molly and Kelsey (and their pet rats Olympia and Smash) -- unfortunately partner Tim Quick was away in Perth.

Over a cup of tea Gabrielle told how they had to evacuate their home two weeks ago when a bushfire threatened the area.

Burned out coastal heathland near Gabrielle's home.

The fire came quite close, but their home was saved.

And here we are in the midst of wind, rain and chill, hoping and praying for fine weather.

But, as my mother used to say, if wishers were horses beggars would ride!

It’s time to work our way down to Albany and then back to Perth regardless of the weather.

Monkey Mia and maritime misadventures

Travel the harsh and inhospitable Western Australian north west coast and you cannot help but be sympathetic to the plight of English buccaneer explorer William Dampier.

When he put into Shark Bay (so named by him) in 1699 on the Roebuck, Dampier was desperate to find potable water.

Sunset at Carnarvon shot by Carol just before our departure for Monkey Mia.

After failing in many attempts to dig wells, he and his crew tried to capture an Aborigine among a group and force him to reveal his source of supply.

The Aborigines resisted, Dampier shot one, and one of his men was speared in the cheek.

Walking trail overlooking Monkey Mia. Dampier was bothered by flies, too.

Dampier decided to withdraw, and the Roebuck left ‘New Holland’ without finding water, and sailed off to Timor, ‘my men growing scorbutic for want of refreshments’.

At the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort on the Peron Peninsula in Shark Bay, where we stayed three nights, the water situation is still as delicate as ever.

Carol's rainbow at Monkey Mia after an afternoon storm.

Only government-subsidised desalinated water is on tap for cooking and drinking. For showers and washing, you use salty groundwater.

Not that this detracts from the experience of visiting a World Heritage listed region, home to a huge and colourful range of marine life described by Dampier in his log.

Without the desalinated water, the resort would be a very different place, not that this would concern grey nomads like us with contingent supplies (of Victorian Bitter).

Dolphin promenade

Like the other visitors to Monkey Mia, we thrilled to the hand feeding of dolphins, which seemed as interested in us as we were in them. I should add that the dolphins are deliberately underfed so as not to cultivate reliance.

Park ranger with hungry dolphins awaiting their snack.

We also found ourselves finding relief from the 37-degree heat by swimming in the cool and crystal clear sea (ignoring the thousands of stingrays that inhabit the area).

Denham.

Monkey Mia and the nearby former pearling township of Denham are remote points of civilisation. Denham (pop. 1,500) is 410 kilometres north of Geraldton and 330 kilometres south of Carnarvon, with only red sand, spinifex, acacia and melaleuca bush in between.

Shark Bay, with the western boundary Dirk Hartog Island, is steeped in maritime history, as indeed is most of the Western Australian coast.

Most of us know about Dirk Hartog from our school history lessons. He landed on the island in 1616, 152 years before the voyage of Captain Cook, and nailed to a post a pewter plate carrying a description of his landing.

Incredibly, another Dutch explorer William de Vlamingh found the site 81 years later and replaced the pewter plate with one of his own.

Dutch courage

I find it amazing that we are not all speaking Dutch, given that so many 17th century explorers from Holland charted the Western Australian coast. For an excellent chronicle, I would encourage readers to visit this site.

Fast forward to 1941 and another history making incident, the sea battle between HMAS Sydney and the German raider HSK Kormoran 200 kilometres west of Shark Bay.

Lifeboat from the HSK Kormoran.

Readers will recall that the Sydney was sunk with the loss of all 645 crew. The crew of the damaged Kormoran scuttled her and around 300 survivors out of the original 383 found their way to the WA mainland, where they became prisoners of war.

Just before leaving Carnarvon for Monkey Mia, we found a lifeboat from the Kormoran and lots of memorabilia on display at a museum at historic One Mile Jetty.

One Mile Jetty tram ride.

If you think one can immerse oneself (so to speak) only so much in maritime history without drowning, think again. Geraldton, our next port of call, 410 kilometres south of Denham, offered a veritable cornucopia for this blue water tragic.

One Mile Jetty.

Shells and stromatolites

But before leaving the Peron Peninsula, I should mention two other places that excited our interest there.

One is Shell Beach, where in a unique phenomenon, trillions of tiny shells known as coquina have accumulated over thousands of years to form banks up to 10 metres deep.

Calcium carbonate from the shells has over time hardened and bound the banks such that they can be and are mined as building blocks for local structures.

Coquina shells.

The other is Hamelin Pool, where we were able to observe rocky clumps of living fossils known as stromatolites. These 3,000-year-old colonies of micro organisms are related to the oldest and simplest forms of life that existed 3.5 billion years ago.

Coquina shell block mine at Hamelin Pool.

Back then, blue-green bacteria, the first living organisms to colonise earth, flourished in shallow waters, trapping floating sediments to build soft stromatolite clumps that began releasing oxygen, producing the environment for the evolution of air breathing life forms.

We found this glimpse at primeval life particularly fascinating, given that 2009 is the 200th anniversary year of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of his publication The Origin of Species.

Stromatolites. Note the 100-year-old wool wagon tracks.

Wickedness and courage

Now to Geraldton (pop. 30,000) where we enjoyed a great game of golf, met new friends, attended the annual blessing of the crayfish fleet and, you guessed it, visited the Western Australian Museum and its riveting history of Dutch exploration of the coast.



Blessing of the Geraldton crayfish fleet.









Geraldton, viewed from the HMAS Sydney Memorial site.


Readers may recall the tragic story of the Batavia and its merchant commander Francisco Pelsaert.

Just to recapitulate, in 1629 the VOC (Dutch East India Company) ship Batavia, with 322 people on board, was wrecked on Morning Reef, one of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands 40 nautical miles off the coast of Geraldton.

Replica of the Batavia longboat, built by TAFE students.

In an amazing navigational feat, Pelsaert and skipper Adriaan Jacobz, with 46 other survivors including two women and a baby, sailed the ship’s 10.7-metre open longboat 1,500 nautical miles to Batavia (Jakarta) in 29 days, without loss of life, to get help.

I quote from a plaque: “For those remaining on the islands, what followed was a horrific story of mutiny, murder, rape and retribution. By the time Pelsaert returned (72 days after arriving in Batavia) 124 shipwreck survivors had died at the hands of Jeronimus Cornelisz, a senior company officer and his followers.”

These people had been drowned, stabbed, strangled or bludgeoned to death, the women forced into concubinage.

Canon retrieved from the Batavia wreck.

The hero of the story is Wiebbe Hayes, whom Cornelisz had isolated with 20 others on another island hoping they would die. However, Hayes and his companions found water and food, and organised the defence of his men and others who escaped the bloodshed, repelling attacks from Cornelisz and eventually capturing him.

On his return Pelsaert rounded up the mutineers, and Cornelisz and others were summarily hanged, Cornelisz after having his hands chopped off with mallet and chisel.

Memorial to Wiebbe Hayes, hero of the Batavia mutiny, on the Geraldton esplanade.

The museum provides a detailed account of the tragedy, and carries a large number of items retrieved from the wreck, including all the elements of a masonry portico meant for the Dutch East India Company castle in Batavia.

The hewn blocks, stowed as ballast in the Batavia, have been mounted on a scaffold at the museum and what an impressive portico it is, as our picture shows.

There is much more to the Batavia story, of course, and many more stories of heroism from the litany of Dutch shipwrecks on the Western Australian coast, but interested readers can follow up themselves on the net.

Portico meant for the VOC Castle in Batavia, mounted in the Western Australian Museum.

And finally…

I’ll mention just one more story that fascinated me. The VOC ship Zeewijk commanded by Jan Steyns, with a crew of 212 and 315,836 guilders in storage was wrecked in 1728 on a Houtman Abrolhos reef when en route from Holland to Batavia via the Cape of Good Hope.

Ten drowned attempting to launch a boat. Eventually the crew set up camp and began salvaging gear from the wreck. Soon after a longboat and 11 seamen set out for Batavia to seek help but were never seen again.

After living off seals and birds on the island, which eventually began to diminish in number, the survivors decided to build a boat from the wreckage and local timber.

After four months’ incredible craftsmanship, the 20-metre keelboat Sloepie was launched. It enabled 82 survivors (six having died en route) to reach Batavia just nine months after the Zeewijk foundered.

I felt this good news story would make a terrific movie.

Needless to say, Carol had to drag me kicking and screaming from the museum as I would have set up camp there if I could.

Teeing off at the 10th at the Spalding Park Golf Club in Geraldton -- one activity that could drag me from the museum.