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Beautiful tree across the way in Karratha, surrounded by big blue domed sky. I cropped the big motor home which suffered half a ton of cockatoo poo down its front from a winged family high up in the tree.

Caravan park at Onslow right on the beachfront.

Two tiny finches (Bill and Coo) have taken a liking to our bathroom window sill. They were so keen, they even tried building a nest in the skylight above the shower stall.

Post and Telegraph office at Cossack which was one of the brilliant heritage buildings currently housing an art exhibition—-which gave us the chance to see the inside along with a quite sensational array of art.

 

Sunset at day one, spending the weekend at Balmoral, (Karratha) Fish and chips tomorrow at the yacht club at Port Walcott with Peta, Aub and Chelsea

Two days before the EOFY 2016 we took a circuitous* route to WAs northern climes, planning a family caravanning get-together in Carnarvon for a week from July the first.
Our travels only took the long way round because of a problem with the caravan—-grey nomads in their retirement adore caravans for the constancy of problems they bring—–what else would would one do with their days? Old blokes always revert to yarns involving caravan problems when they gather in the parks at five o’clock and more especially when you encounter a dilemma putting the awning away.
(It’s not unusual to get the advice of up to 6 nomad neighbours in any given 5 minute complication)
With three sites ordered at the top-shelf Wintersun caravan park we decided to arrive early to secure the sites for Ian and Ally, Jason and Bec and all the kids. On the Friday night (July 1) —-following guarantees it never rains in Carnarvon—- it bucketed down all night, along with the fiercest of winds. It did however fine up a little for everyone’s eventual arrival on the Saturday.

Lunch in Geraldton overlooking the boat harbour, a day before Carnarvon.

Arrival at the Wintersodden caravan park where it never rains

The guarantee ‘it never rains in the Gascoyne’ was as good as a Wayne Swan budget returning to surplus. But for the week we managed to dodge the showers and check out the limited tourist options a couple of times over. It was a memorable family time together before the young’uns headed south via Dongara on the beachfront and got hit by an almighty storm.

Rocky Pool off the Gascoyne Junction road was a firm favourite on a sunny day

I am writing this parked at the Nanutarra roadhouse caravan park where we are overnighting on our journey from Carnarvon to Karratha seeking daytime temps of 28 in deference to Carnarvon’s 22 and showers over the weekend. Sunday we even plan to visit the yacht clipboard for fish and chips.

* the long way round involved returning to the service guys in Mandurah to remedy the unfinished warranty work on the caravan before driving back to Perth and thence to the Indian Ocean Highway to Geraldton and all points north.

(Agh! But what would we have to discuss with other nomads if warranty work and a $330 service had been completed satisfactorily?)

Every Monday our mindset has for years always been Isabel’s druthers for embroidery—stitch and bitch—being the family’s colloquial terminology for Mum’s preferred hobby.
Staying in Toowoomba with Dorothy O’Connor we get to discuss with her son Rodney (Qld DPI) the various types of crops grown in this region; with cotton a hot-ticket item here abouts.
Today, being a Monday, found us making our way through the fertile black soils of Cecil Plains on our way to a lunch in Dalby with our caravanning friends Maureen and Buddy Statham.

What a find! 24 giant cotton reels loaded and ready to go to the local gin.

Lunch at the Coffee Club was a menu of mirth with every mouthful; Dot’s sheep station years spent at Mt Magnet versus Buddy’s mobs of Angus cattle, Maureen’s recent visit to the Melbourne flower festival and her advice of touristy things we need to get done on this holiday. (We first met the Stathams caravanning at 80 Mile Beach last year and caught up later on our journey at the Condamine pub, which is their local)

Tomorrow we trio head for Brisbane and a chance to spend four days exploring the Queensland capital from our 2 bed apartment on the river. We’ll be needing another chair on the verandah!

A brilliant lead-light Capolla of massive proportions

Obviously late 19th century guests came to the Carrington Hotel to ‘take the waters’

Sign above the Paragon Cafe door remind us of the useless laws that have been and continue to be imposed by parliaments that pass thousands of inane regulations.

and below one of the many staircases, dining room entry, the blogger in the chairman’s lounge. Lastly at breakfast on day one we were presented with a chemical product that hadn’t been invented a century ago. On day 2 this had been rectified  with a supply of Danish Lurpak butter.

 

Over an extended Easter break we, the gentrified Perth branch, joined with the big guns family branch at Northcote in inner city Melbourne. That’s Jas and Stu’s house—under the big chimney— in the 1920’s picture on High Street above

It was a holiday with a difference; Jas held court each day from the heights of the old Bailey (a 12ft high aluminium set of steps); Isabel took advantage of the fine weather to take the grandies to the local parks and ice cream shop; grandpa was literally an old grumble-bum but did some cooking and Stuart practiced his hiking skills in readiness for a weekend bush hike thru the Dandenongs later this month.
Home on High is never dull.
The refit of the early 20th century mansion is progressing extremely well and now complete with bedrooms, celebrity bathroom, kitchen of c’est magnifique proportions, dining and family room.
Golden aged folk soon forget how three year olds treat their 2 y o sisters. And the marvel of how a newly celebrated one year old just gets up and walks all over the place.
Jason the gyp-boarder (him with the long mullet) wandered about the backyard gorging on the abundance of ripe red grapes on the vine. It bothered him not that a friendly neighbourhood rat shared his passion for the berries nor the fact that lorikeets joined in the harvest in the evenings.
The sparkies in their orange shirts and weighty tool belts gave enriched colour to the mix and we were forever forgetting to put out the bins on Sunday nights which, added to the builders’ rubble created a walloping accumulation of detritus.
But I digress.
The littlies could get up to 25kmh up the length of the passageway on their little bikes and it was a wonder Roma never got her toes run over. Frankie, Quinn and Roma can now all luxuriate in their own six foot circular Roman bath, or alternatively the family can wash together in a shower room replete with no less than 4 shower roses.
In addition to all of this Jas is handling one unit at uni and house maid at each change over of the Airbnb on Claude Street. And her classmate students in architecture seem to constantly complain of tiredness.

Footnote:

The cannons are Mark VII 8 inch breech loading rifled guns and were built in 1884 and 1885 by W.G. Armstrong and Co. of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Northumberland in England. The cannons weigh just under 12 tons each, or about 12,000 kilograms and could fire a shell weighing 95 kilos over 7.5 kilometres.

Katoomba’s pages of time are beautifully chronicled in the Carrington Hotel (circa 1882) and we four are living the narrative just like tourists of a century and more ago.
A love-seat in the lead-light bay window, a bathroom befitting the great Gatsby—with a shower reminiscent of the Katoomba Falls–drinks taken leisurely on the front verandah; a graceful dining room recollective of High Society and art objects to keep the antiques road show going for a year.
The gracious old lady is located smack in the middle of this Blue Mountain township, right on Katoomba Road with its host of old shops which is a historical registry in itself.
Like the Paragon Cafe celebrating its centenary this year and still kitted out in a style the Anzacs enjoyed, with one exception; meal orders are now electronically sent off to the kitchen.
Fortunately we arrived in the mountains yesterday with its sunny disposition and the chance to clearly view the three sisters; for today the temperature is more like 12 degrees with thick fog and Scottish mist to boot.
Perfect for the genial graciousness of those holidaying in the late 19th century.
Julie has taken her leave of us and retired for the afternoon while Graham reads the Oz iPad edition, Isabel is listening to a talking book and doing the crossword and I am recording it all for the blog. (All happily ensconced in a lounge area best described as indulgent.).

Katoomba was originally known as William’s Chimney or Collett’s Swamp.

Sometime in the spring of 1976 I had an occasion to ring the dept of transport in Canberra. The reason escapes me completely—probably to do with an aircraft fly over—at least something to do with approval for a 150^th anniversary event.

The very first person to speak with me commenced by inquiring as to whether I was one of those peanuts in Albany attempting to get hold of the Eclipse Island lighthouse.

“No!” I replied, “But do tell me all about it”.

He informed me that the Maritime Safety Authority vessel the Cape Don was presently at Eclipse Island, just south of the heads of King George Sound.

The ship’s engineers were on the island removing the 50 year old Chance Brothers kerosene lantern with its enormously brilliant prism lenses and taking it to the Fremantle Maritime Museum

And, Canberra was gifting to a Fremantle museum a lighthouse that had spent all it working life in Albany’s waters?

The town’s maritime history was going to float off to the Swan River colony’s port facility, in time for Perth’s 150 celebrations in 1979?

“Well, count me in as one of the peanuts” I shot back, adding “and to whom do I need to speak to pursue this matter?”

The public servant informed me that the Fremantle deal had been struck a couple of years ago; there was no way Albany was going to get Canberra to budge; and I would need to speak with his boss to take it further.

He then kindly put me through to his superior who also told me the same; that the agreement with Fremantle was water-tight and I would need to speak with his boss to take it further. And similarly he saw to it that I was progressing rapidly up the chain of command.

By now I must have been speaking with a level 6 in the national capital, same story, plenty of tut-tutting along with no! no! no! But if I wanted to speak with the head of department I would need to ring back the following morning.

Late that afternoon I went looking for the blokes removing the lighthouse and chanced upon the engineers from the Cape Don, slaking their thirst in the front bar of the Royal George Hotel.

The maritime engineer John Lemon (a really good bloke) bet me his ‘lefty’ as a guarantee we would not be successful in getting the lighthouse off-loaded in Albany the next day. Like, we were really up against it, for the job would be completed by noon the following day with the vessel heading straight to Fremantle. Lemon did however give me the dimensions and weight details of the cargo in the unlikely event the vessel pulled into Albany.

Bright and early the next day I was on the phone once more to Canberra, seeking approval from a real bigshot in the Maritime Services Dept. He was a kindly man and expressed a good deal of interest in Albany’s 150^th celebrations. This was a bigwig from the national capital showing a genuine regard for the great southern community.

“You know’ he said, “I actually went to high school in Albany”

My riposte was “there’s no more compelling argument that you need to send a telegram to the master of the Cape Don and instruct him to drop the lighthouse off in Albany this afternoon?”

Shortly afterwards at around 11am I did as the bigwig instructed and went to the Albany Port Authority and spoke with the master of the ship by radio to confirm that he had received the telegram and find out when he planned to dock.

My staunchest ally mayor Harold Smith was away at the time and I need approval to get 2 semi-trailer trucks from Bell Bros down to the port by 2pm. So I sought the ok from his deputy ‘Noddy’ Richards who initially balked at any expenditure without council approval, but concluded by saying “thanks for nothing—-see you in gaol—-you better get the trucks!”

Mid that afternoon the master of the Cape Don off loaded many tons of valuable Eclipse Island lighthouse equipment, packed in boxes and had me sign a receipt on his manifesto.

Payment involved a couple cartons of beer stubbies for the crew and engineer John Lemon and in gentlemanly manner I forgave him the bet involving any anatomical parts.

Footnote:

Saving the Eclipse Island Lighthouse took less than 24 hours and the luck of coming across a former Albany student to snare this prized possession. Sadly those crates offloaded that day languished at the back of the town council depot for a decade or more before it was finally re-erected to pride of place in the Residency Museum.

 

Looking back to events in your life from 40 years ago you quickly discover that most of the stars and folk from your past are either now irrelevant in the present world—or dead!

But there is one enduring name, perpetual rocker Alice Cooper who, with his wife Sheryl, visited Albany in the months prior to the Albany 150^th Anniversary to try his hand at shark fishing. Prompted no-doubt, by Melbourne shark fisherman Clive Green who landed a 1550kg white pointer shark off the whaling station at Frenchman’s Bay, on Anzac Day 1976.

Sharks were a good fit with Alice Cooper’s stage antics and his minders deemed a snap or two of Cooper with sharks on a jetty at Emu Point was definitely image building.

The fact that the rock performer travelled out to sea with professional shark fishermen, who set 3km of baited hooks, was immaterial. The world’s media ran with the story and Albany benefitted from the publicity.

And today at 68 years of age you can hear Alice Cooper on radio stations around the world and he continues touring with his band.