Just looking at the two names above, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Spain or France. Jurien is a French name and Norcia is Spanish, Jurien is named after a French Naval Administrator. It is 140 K's South of Dongara and the drive gave us the opportunity of seeing the small towns of Leeman and Green Head along the way. This coastal drive has great views of the coast which is littered with fishing/rock lobsters shacks, these galvanised iron shacks are very agricultural and one tends to wonder if aboriginal humpies might be a better bet. Anyhow there must be a lot of crayfish in this area.
Jurien Bay is lovely little place with good shopping areas and only one caravan park, but it is a good park and was full of holidaying families. Judy was keen to do a sea lion tour. Sea Lions are similar to Seals but, have ears and a face like a puppy dog, young one's are playful and are happy to swim with humans. And so it was an early start when along with 15 others we boarded a modified fishing boat for a 40 minute trip to a little island off the coast. On arrival the skip dropped anchor just off the shore and well within view of a colony of sea lions who showed no interest whatever in us. The deck'ie donned a wetsuit and with flippers and snorkel swam into within about 20 meters of the colony and started jumping up and down and flapping his arms, within seconds a group of young lions took to the water to come and see what the ruckus was about. They followed him back to the boat where the other tourists quickly jumped into the water with them. The tourists and sea lions played happily in the water for the next two hours, the antic's of the sea lions was incredible, the diving, jumping, twisting through the water and even putting their nose on the mask of the swimmers like they were kissing them. The tourists were ecstatic with the experience. I did not swim because of the crook shoulder and Judy because of the cold windy conditions however for the $100 each price tag we thought that it was an opportunity to good to miss even though we were just watching.
The other reason for our visit, was to visit the Numbung National Park and look at the Pinnacles which we did on Thursday Oct 7th. This phenomena of hundreds of limestone pinnacles protruding through the desert sands is awesome, the different sizes and shapes is endless. It is hard to describe the scene, so I'll attach some photo's. The park has a visitors center which is beautifully designed and well worth a visit to see, there is a 1.5 K walk and a 4K drive to chose between, or do both, as we did. We then went in Cervantes for lunch.
Whilst at Jurien Bay we also went for a drive through Lesueur National Park and found a variety of wildflowers which Judy photographed. This drive was about 18 K's through the park and is a beautiful drive with the option to walk different areas.
Last night in Jurien Bay we had drinks with Pat and Pete who are heading in different direction from us the next day.
Friday the 8th Oct and we are travelling inland to New Norcia, a town established by Spanish Benedictine Monks over a hundred years ago, originally 200 acres of land and now 8,000 acres of surrounding land. This is a small community of buildings which were once used for orphanages and boarding schools and a monastery for monks which still exists for the seven monks remaining.
The architecture and buildings are simply fantastic a photographers dream. There is a lovely peaceful ambiance about the town, that is until you try and sleep behind the roadhouse when you discover that even though the roadhouse is closed the road trains still screech to a stop at all times of the night for the drivers to use the toilets and drivers of refrigerated trucks run their cooling all night. This caused our two night stop to shorten to one and no refund for the site fees, oh where has the love gone?
Anyhow we did a really good tour of the buildings, which allowed us to see parts of the place not normally open and give us an insight into the history and lifestyle of the monks. We recommend this tour to anyone interested, it is very good. Also very good is the Hotel which has "Abbey Ale" on tap, this ale is made by Dr Chuck Hahn of Malt Shovel Breweries and is one of the best beers I have ever tasted. They also have Monastery Wines which are really good wines and the food is OK too.
We began our second day at New Norcia by attending mass with the monks and later visited the art gallery and museum which we found to be very good. The art in particular is extraordinary and well worth a look.
In looking back the early Spanish Monks had wood carvers and artists who crafted altars and painted religious scenes which even today are special. One tends to wonder what will happen to all this in the future with the numbers of monks declining and the aging process taking place?
At mid morning we headed off toward Perth
No comments:
Post a Comment