We arrived in Geraldton with the main aim of getting a service at the last Volkswagen dealer before Alice Springs or Darwin. It seems the transformation of Geraldton from a rough industrial town into a vibrant city is well under way, and with a day to spend in the town, we started in the very centre of town.
The wonderful foreshore
When the rail line to the Port was moved from the foreshore, the city embarked on a massive redevelopment of its waterfront. A real hit for the kids was the water-park!
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| The Water Park - built on the old railway line! |
Nearby we checked out the locally built submarine, built as a prototype for a local Western Rock Lobster fisherman. Unfortunately the venting of the lead acid batteries rendered the experiment a failure, but I was amazed that such a project had even been commenced.
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| The submarine was painted yellow after the Beatles hit song... as you do |
HMAS SYDNEY II Memorial
60 years after the HMAS SYDNEY II was sunk with the loss of all hands, a beautiful memorial was opened overlooking Geraldton. The memorial is simply beautiful, with the centre piece being a dome made of 645 sea gulls, representing the 645 Australian lives lost in the battle with the HSK Kormoran (The Kormoran lost 80 lives in the same battle). Whilst both ships were destroyed and sunk, survivors were only recovered from the Kormoran, and no trace was found of the Sydney. This lead to all sorts of conspiracy theories abounding, with the families - and even the Navy unsure of what actually happened.
One of the most striking figures at the memorial is the statue of a grief stricken woman looking out to sea. In one of those uncanny coincidences, when the wreck of was finally found in 2008, and a compass bearing was taken to the exact coordinates of the Sydney's final resting place, her gaze is directly along that bearing.
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| HMAS SYDNEY II Memorial at Geraldton |
The HMAS SYDNEY II memorial is one of the most poignant and beautiful memorials I have seen - and if you pass this way, I implore you to spend a few moments here. A reliable source told me it was built with fund raised entirely by the Rotary Club in Geraldton. Thank you.
We all get a little hot under the collar
The main reason for our layover in Geraldton was of a more practical reason. Rocky was in for a service - just a routine grease and oil change - although one alarming fault had manifested itself over the long weekend... the air conditioning wasn't working. A simple check of the fuses confirmed that wasn't the problem, so it was with trepidation that I followed the advice of the owners manual and took the car to "be checked at an authorised Volkswagen Dealer".
The scheduled service went fine - however the dealer found the air conditioner compressor had indeed failed, in an internal switch somewhere, and needed replacing. Thankfully a new part was in Perth - and could be couriered up overnight and installed tomorrow.
I explained the situation to Jo - who didn't want to hang around another day. She firmly stated that the air conditioning was a nice to have, not an essential item of functioning equipment. I think part of her stance came from some friends who ended up stuck in Cairns for almost a month waiting for a new gearbox to be installed in their new car. All along they were being continually promised it would only be another day or two - so wasted the best part of a third of their precious holiday. She was determined not to let the same situation happen to us.
On the other hand, I had seen how hot and bothered Jo and the kids had become on the previous day's drive without air conditioning, when the outside temperature was only 24 degrees. I was determined to leave Geraldton with working air conditioning - for my own sanity / safety.
Well what else could I do. I agreed to go ahead with the work, but stressed that we were booked in at Kalbarri the following afternoon - and if the parts couldn't be found in Perth and be sent to Geraldton overnight, we wouldn't be waiting (oh and perhaps they could explain that to my wife directly if the parts didn't make it to Geraldton).
Thankfully the team at Volkswagen Geraldton were true to their word, and we were able to get on the road the following afternoon with everyone cool and collected. I was very relieved!
More Batavia history
The bonus of having an extra morning in Geraldton was that we were able to check out some more of the sights, including one stature of Wiebbe Hayes, the hero of the Batavia shipwreck.
We were admiring the statue of Wiebbe Hayes, when a passing gentleman asked us what we wanted to know about him. It tuned out he was Mr Anthony Horn, the sculptor! We were able to hear the story of why Wiebbe Hayes was the hero of the Batavia shipwreck from one of the resident experts! Essentially Wiebbe was a soldier who repelled attacks from the mutineer Jeronimous Cornelisz before capturing him. When the rescue ship came in sight some three and a half months after the sinking, he raced the remaining mutineers to the rescue ship, beating them and raising the alarm thus ensuring the mutineers were captured, and the history of their terrible slaughter told. We also learnt the original sculpture was made in fibreglass, and Mr Horn was a little embarrassed it had been subsequently cast in bronze, (not part of the original plan) with many of the textures of the fibreglass visible. Either way, we learnt a little more about the Batavia, and its shipwreck in 1629 at the nearby Houtman Abrolhos Islands, and the art of sculpture.
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| The statue of Wiebbe Hayes |
In fact we continued our walk along the foreshore to the Western Australia Museum Geraldton. This was in a word brilliant. A short little history of nearly everything was covered, from the dawn of time, to the stories of the people of the district from the early dream-time stories to the present day.
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| The WA Museum at Geraldton covered all sorts of stories |
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| The real sandstone facia used as ballast in the Batavia |
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| Batavia Longboat |
Our last visit before picking up the car was the Old Gaol. Originally built by convicts, the Geraldton Gaol was in operation up until the 1980s with only Fremantle Gaol in operation for a longer period of time. These days it houses art and craft stalls - not quite my thing, but it was good to see the building being put to good use.
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| The old cell block - thankfully the inmates these days are much friendlier |
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| The original doors and locks are still in place |
On the road again
We were all getting a little weary, so spent the rest of the afternoon in the library until the car was ready. The library was surprisingly busy - but we found a space and caught up on a bit of our school work. It seemed in no time at all, the car was ready to go, and we were on the road north.
A big thanks to the Kyle and the team at Volkswagen Geraldton for ensuring we were back on the road with the minimum of fuss. We can now look forward to chasing the sun confident we will stay cool and comfortable on the long road trips.
Unfortunately we just need to find the sun at the moment...
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