Captives in Rockingham

We booked a service for Winnie and we asked the mechanics to look at why our fuel consumption has been going up.  The fittings on the fuel filter had deteriorated and may have been leaking which would have caused our fuel usage to increase.  Sadly, the loosened fittings finally broke when the fuel filter was being replaced.  The parts need to be freighted from the east coast - a disadvantage in WA we have found in various instances.

So, here we are stranded on the nature strip outside the Rockingham Fiat dealer, completely immobile, waiting for our much needed parts to arrive.

We have hired a small car for a few days to allow us to move about a bit for shopping etc.  Hopefully, the parts will come soon??????????????? and we will be on our way.

To add insult to injury, the small Rockingham Bridge Club which meets only twice a week is only allowing people to play bridge if they are members.  The rationale is that with Covid-19 they need to protect their members from the virus.  In order to be less infectious, we would need to become associate members for the cost of $20.  Then we can play :-)

We got our "get out of jail card" and the part arrived on Friday so we had it fixed and we were able to leave Rockingham.  While we were captives, we actually went and played bridge at the Mandurah Bridge Club (30kms south of Rockingham) who were most welcoming and we did not have to sign up as members.

In fact, we were invited to join some of the bridge players at dinner at a great Italian seafood restaurant.

Cicerello's is a Mandurah institution.  Many Italian fishermen fished at Mandurah in the past so there is a strong Italian influence remaining.  

To celebrate our freedom I had a swing on this beaut large swing at a Mandurah park.

Finally we have reached Perth

We have reached Perth and we have a service booked in for Winnie at a Fiat Service Centre in Rockingham.  For accommodation before the service, we have been fortunate to enjoy the hospitality of Ron and Kerry who are CMCA members who offer accommodation for RV travellers in their backyard.  And what a backyard it is!

Kerry is a very keen gardener and the backyard, and especially the front yard which she has completely re-landscaped, is a credit to her skills.

Ron and Kerry with Andrew in front of our Winnie, comfortably settled on the grass.

The view of the house from where we are in Winnie.  The suburb is Mahagony Creek, an outer Perth suburb with many very large blocks.  We are really enjoying our stay here.

Yesterday we made a trip to the Mundaring Weir which has attractive surroundings and some walks.  This is the dam from which water is taken in the pipeline all the way to Kalgoorlie and all places in between.

We had coffee at the beautiful Mundaring Weir Hotel, a Federation-style building which was built in 1906 on the site of an older hotel.  It was a favourite retreat from the city, served by rail.  Many parts of the building were shipped from England.  Today it is also a venue for concerts and weekend events.

These beautifully coloured parrots flew around the area where we had coffee.

We took photos for our own pleasure but also to show our friend Brian back home, that there are such lovely birds elsewhere than at his beloved Polish Cafe in Mount Tamborine :-)

New Norcia and Toodyay - Wheatbelt towns

We arrived at the monastery town of New Norcia.  It is the only monastic town in Australia.  It was established as a Benedictine Community in 1847 by two Spanish monks.  Funding was provided and the order provided for the education of Aboriginal youth.  Benedictine monks continue to inhabit the monastery today and New Norcia is respected in culinary circles for the quality of its bread and baking, a tradition passed on by the monks.  We did a two hour tour of the grounds: monastery; its guest wing and private coutyard; and two former colleges for girls and boys - now used for holiday groups and short-term school visits.

The next town we came to in this wheatbelt region was Toodyay with some fine historical buildings.

York is another historic and attractive town with some fine old buildings

The Town Hall.

One of the pubs.

The Old Settlers building which houses a lovely cafe run by a Chinese/Lebanese couple with the best baclava we have tasted.

The old Masonic Hall.

Continuing our travels south down the WA coast

 A variety of sights along the way.

Another blue tree.  They are often very spectacular.  They are meant to highlight depression as in Beyond Blue.

A bench in Geraldton along the foreshore.  Not quite sure why but these knitted and crocheted decorations were on trees and benches.

A view of the harbour in the town of Leeman.

The beach at Milligan Island Eco Camping.

A view of the camping area.

The brilliant white sand which resembled a ski slope.

Milligan Island.

A close up of the gap in the island.

Spectacular Dynamite Bay at Green Head.

Some of the towns we visited for the wildflowers

We showed some of the beautiful wildflowers on various posts and now for the more prosaic photos of some of the towns.

Entrance to Mullewa, one of the centres of the wildflower spread.  

The walk we did in Mullewa.

Some of the terrain on the walk.

One of the many pieces of artificial flower art.

Decoration of the Visitors Centre at Three Springs, another wildflower centre.

The old post office building in the town.

A decorated water tank at the Lake Indoon campground.

Monsignor's Hawes designed and built the church at Mingenew where he also built the priest's house.  Monsignor Hawes designed and supervised the building of the Geraldton Cathedral among other ecclesiastical buildings all over the world.

An eclectus parrot who travels with his owners in a family camper trailer.

Return visit to Kalbarri

This is somewhat out of sequence, much to Andrew's distress as the wildflowers got in the way of the the postings.  We made a return trip to Kalbarri on our way south and visited the family of someone we know in Newcastle. We saw our first wildflowers on the road into town.

View of Kalbarri from the lookout at the edge of the town.

The main beach.

Every day at 8:45am the popular pelican feeding takes place.  Volunteers take turn at coming to feed them fish and tell people about these large birds and their habits.

A different kind of bird on an emu farm just out of town where Andrew walked.

Fossilised worm burrows he came across on the walk.

Just a few of the more spectacular wildflowers

The variety of wildflowers we are seeing seems never ending and it has now become almost an obsession to try to spot a new one.  We think we are up to our 400th and we must stop putting more on the blog - saving it all for the photo album at the end of the trip.  The following few are the more spectacular ones we have seen.

That is the last posting of wildflowers.  We will always remember their beauty and the pleasure they have given us on this trip.  Neither of us are great gardeners or flower lovers and people talking about wildflowers in WA did not make a great impression in the past.  We are now hooked and will recommend to anyone to try to incorporate seeing the wildflowers in this wondrous state.