Off to See the Wizard - Coral Bay to Carnarvon

On Sunday we continued on our way south.

We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn once again, so we are now out of the tropics and the weather will start to cool down from the balmy temperatures we have been enjoying.

The landscape was rather flat as we drove along. 

We finished listening to the audio book we had been enjoying.  It wasn’t too bad.

All of a sudden, the landscape changed from low scrub to this! Yes, that is bananas.  

We had arrived in the fruit bowl of Western Australia, Carnarvon.  It is on the Gascoyne River and all sorts of fruit and veges are grown in the area.  There was even a small honesty box stall in the caravan park, where I bought some egg plants and tomatoes.

We had checked into the caravan park by lunch time, which gave us the afternoon to have a look around.  

This is a far north as Mick has been, back in the mid 1980s when he was travelling with his brother and a couple of mates. He wanted to see if the pub where they got horribly drunk still existed.  It does.  We didn’t worry about going in.

Mick’s recollection is of the town being a bit of a dump.  Things look a bit better these days. Opposite the old pub there are some very flash waterfront houses.

The main waterfront of the town is known as the “Fascine”.  This was created in the late 1800s, but has obviously been update since.  It was a barrier of timber stakes, backfilled with soil and gravel to protect the riverbank from erosion in flooding.  It has a lovely boardwalk and palms all the way along.

Midway, there is a memorial to HMAS Sydney II, which was sunk in November 1941 by the German warship HKS Kormoran.  More on that later.

There is also a memorial to the HKS Kormoran.

We then drove just out of town to Babbage Island.  There is a museum there, as well as a cafe.  The main thing I was interested in was the lighthouse.  We were lucky enough to get to join a little tour of the area.

The first lighthouse was built in 1897.  The framework was jarrah timber.

The timber deteriorated, and in 1961 the top was transferred to a new steel frame and the light automated.

In 1980 a new lighthouse was built.  Yes, that is the light at the top of a pole.  No climbing a tower any more, just lower the pole for maintenance.

Fortunately, the top of the original lighthouse has been retained, together with the top of the steel tower that it sat on.

The lighthouse keeper’s cottage is now a nice little museum.

The other main feature on the island is the “One Mile Jetty”.  It was used for loading livestock onto boats and had a steam train running out along its length.  

It was built in the late 1800s and the train operated until the 1960s.  It was in disrepair it the late 1990s and the community banded together to save it.  However, that didn’t save it from a cyclone last year, that destroyed much of it.  A lot of it has been “deconstructed” and the timbers are gradually being sold.  A small committee is trying to lobby government for funding to save what remains.

The steam loco is in their museum.

The main part of the museum was the most interesting and the most unexpected.  It was all about the tragedy of HMAS Sydney II.

There were a couple of little movies telling all about it.  In a nutshell, what happened is that off the shore of Carnarvon, the German Warship HSK Kormoran approached HMAS Sydney II and they had a battle.  Both ships were sunk, but Sydney was more badly damaged.  All 645 crew were lost.  It is Australia’s worst maritime disaster.

319 crew from HSK Kormoran abandoned ship in life boats and rafts.  Gradually, they were found either still on the water, or having landed and were rounded up.  78 of their 399 crew were also lost.  The survivors were held POW until 1947, when they were repatriated to Germany.  This is one of the life boats.

The wrecks were never found.  The Captain of HSK Kormoran had kept notes of the battle and location and in 2008 a concerted effort was made to find the wrecks.  Firstly, HSK Kormoran was located in March, and two weeks later, using the Captain’s notes, they located HMAS Sydney II.  They are now war graves.  The damage to HMAS Sydney II married up with the notes from the Captain.  It had been a true battle.  It was always a mystery why none of the crew from HMAS Sydney II survived.  This mystery was solved, as the bow had broken off the ship and it would have sunk very quickly. 

I was always aware of the disaster and remember when the wrecks were discovered, but we learnt so much more from this museum.

There was one other poignant item on the island.  The sculpture memorial to the Lock Hospitals.  This is a dark period of history from 1908 to 1919.  Aboriginal people were sent to two islands off shore, one for men, one for women, for supposedly having communicable diseases. Over 700 people were sent there, being loaded onto boats on the one mile jetty, often in chains or hand cuffs.  Over 200 are buried on the islands.  Very sad.

Back in town, on a more cheerful note, there is some colourful street art.  Enjoy.

There is even a big banana in town.  

OK, not quite as big as the other one, but still eye catching.  It turns out that Carnarvon was the first place in Australia to grow bananas.

The highlight of the day for Mick was the foreshore and for me was learning about HMAS Sydney II and HSK Kormoran.