Around Geraldton

There's some really scenic countryside heading south towards Geraldton - rolling green hills, acres of wheat and canola, farms, ocean, villages.

The camping area at Coronation Beach, about half hour
north of Geraldton

The town is the biggest we've come across in WA and was a bit of a culture shock for us.  However the 'city centre' is really more like a regional town (Albury or Wodonga perhaps) and we soon found our way around.  It was an opportunity for us to get a few jobs done, including a wheel alignment for Troopy after clocking up over 16,000kms.  As it turned out, my laptop suddenly froze and couldn't be revived so fortunately being in Geraldton meant I could have it sorted out.  I was without it for a week and we had to spend 2 extra nights here but it was better than trying to find our way around Perth to have it done.  We used the time very well:)

The beautiful memorial built to commemorate HMAS Sydney II
which was lost in battle off the coast north of here

Probably the most impressive thing we saw in Geraldton was this HMAS Sydney II memorial.  It sits on a hill overlooking the Indian Ocean and is very symbolic, with good explanations of the various elements.  I think the most moving element is the "waiting woman".  Watching the sun set over the ocean from up here was pretty good too.

The seagull detail in the dome

She's known as the "Waiting Woman", gazing
worriedly out to sea hoping her man is safe

The beaches here are lovely - you wouldn't expect town beaches to be so clean but the sand's white, the water's turquoise and the foreshore's all grassed and tidy.  There's a lot of building work going on, both residential and civic.  We enjoyed the art gallery and especially the museum.  While we were there, the travelling Da Vinci inventions exhibition was on show so that was a must-see.  I particularly enjoyed seeing relics from the "Batavia" as I've read the historical account of this shipwreck and its aftermath, quite a story!  

There are lots of silver coins, the ship's bell, some canons ... all sorts of things have been raised from the ocean during the last 50 or so years.  The ship sank in 1629 so they were lying on the ocean bed for a long time!

Geraldton

He always finds somewhere to lie down:)

We stayed in a caravan park the first night in Geraldton, but then stayed about 15km out of town at a lovely bush camp at Fig Tree Crossing.  It was a beautiful rural area near the Chapman Valley, quiet and far better (for us anyway) than staying in town.  We ended up having 3 nights here and exploring the area a fair bit.  Lots of pink, white and yellow everlasting flowers around.

We were pleasantly surprised at how scenic the area is.  There's the advantage of having rolling hills and fantastic farmland, wildflowers and historic villages with none of it more than half an hour from the sea.  We've been to a few local museums - the one at Northampton was especially good as a local lady showed us through and explained everything from a personal perspective.