We have spent the last 6 days at Carnarvon. The brochures promised so much, unfortunately the reality did not live up to it. You get the feeling the town is struggling, lots of empty buildings, farms for sale & pubs that are empty. And it has been very windy, a couple of days it blew 35 knots all day & night.
Spent a bit of time cleaning the van & car & getting rid of a few months of red dirt. We found a place we will go back to – Quobba is about 75km north of Carnarvon & is a great camping spot. Blowhole is a bonus.
Quobba Campground overlooks a great bay. Reminds me of Hawaii.
We haven’t seen too many windmills on our travel. Solar has taken over a lot of the water pumping duties.
Just north of Quobba is a cairn commemorating the HMAS Sydney II & HSK Komoran. It is where the German survivors & life jackets from the Sydney were found. There are memorials in Carnarvon as well. The German lifeboat is on display at the museum.
For those that are interested there are four pubs in town. And anybody that suggests that we are on a pub crawl around Australia – may be correct!
Some of the muriels around town were interesting.
Visited the Space & Technology museum. The Carnarvon tracking station was built to support NASA’s Gemini, Apollo & Skylabs space programme. The OTC satellite earth station was the first station to receive live satellite pictures from England. ABC did the first live broadcast from Carnarvon in 1966.
One of the disappointments was that the One Mile Jetty is closed. You used to be able to walk on it or catch a little train that used to run from town to the end of jetty. The jetty has been closed for safety reasons & it doesn’t look like its going to be fixed anytime soon. A pity as a lot of history is just rusting away & the town has lost a great tourist attraction.
I thought this was a bullock wagon but reading the history these wagons loaded with wool bales were pulled by camels from the sheep stations to the wharf.
One of the ugliest lighthouses we have come across is at Babbage Point. It used to have a top on it, but it now sits on the ground.
The fascine wall at Carnarvon foreshore & bridge the train used to run on to jetty.
Word of the Day :-
- fascines – a bundle of rods or plastic pipes bound together, used in construction or military operations for filling in marshy ground or other obstacles and for strengthening the sides of embankments, ditches, or trenches.
- vociferous – given to vehement or insistent outcry (never Ulrika)
- roué – a man devoted to a life of sensual pleasure