Well I always thought that WWW stood for World Wide Web, or when referring to a place, the Wild Wild West, but as it turns out it stands for the Wild Western Wind!!!
I just checked the BOM site and we are going to have these 40 Knott winds until Monday 🙁 At least the temp is good, forecast for the next few days is 30, 32, 34, 35, 35, 31, 30 🙂
We had a bit of a late start yesterday, not punching out of Cervantes until 11:30am! Everyone needed a sleep in, but given we had a 6 hour drive in front of us, that was a little ridiculas. Not to worry though, being seasoned travelers now, driving 6 hours up the road seems like a pleasant Sunday afternoon drive.
So we headed off into the Wild Western Wind and pointed towards Geraldton. Was a good start to the day, as it was at least 10 minutes before Jess announced “I’m so Hungry…” Lucky it was a well prepared Mum to the rescue with some snacks to get us through.
We thought originally that we would stop in Geraldton for Lunch, but got about 100km out of Geraldton when the hunger bug hit and we stopped for pies and sausage rolls from a local Bakery in Dongara. We also took the opportunity to throw the frisbee on the local cricket ground (despite the wind) before piling back into the car and heading for Geraldton.
As we approached Geraldton, we started to notice just how windy the place was. All the trees grew not straight up, but towards the East!!! Obviously years of strong winds from the west had meant they grow sideways. I wish we had stopped to get a picture, but we were so astounded that we had forgotten to get the camera out until we were well past them 🙁
Anyway, we arrived in Geraldton (to gale force winds…) and headed straight to the war memorial which a few people had told us was worth a visit. It is there to commemorate the sinking of the HMAS Sydney back in the late 1940’s. It is said that during the funeral service for the 645 sailors, a large flock of seagulls flew in off the water, circled the memorial once, then headed out to sea. Not a sqwauk was heard from the birds which is very eery. They therefore built this memorial with a large structure with 645 seagulls to remember the sailors that lost their lives in service to our country.
After Gerldton, we pointed North into the wind once more and headed to Kalbarri. We stopped briefly to get a photo of elephant hill. Not sure how the picture below will come out, but if you look carefully you can see an elephant lying down with it’s trunk pointing to the left.
We arrived about 5:30pm are are staying at a caravan park near the banks of the Murchinson River. Today we will explore the Kalbarri area. We booked for two nights, but may extend if there is enough around here to keep us interested.
*****update*****
I just stole the picture below off Judith’s blog (cheers Judith), this is one of the trees that grows sideways!!!!
