Geraldton WA

About Geraldton

Geraldton Caravan Park

We selected the Geraldton Belair Gardens Caravan Park as it was close to the city (maplink). It was a pretty nice park but very close to some rail shunting yards so all you hear is choof, choof, bang all night long. We’ll definitely be looking for another park on our next visit (nothing wrong with the park and management was great – just the noise)

Geraldton Lobster Co-operative visit

Geraldton is the home of the Brolos Lobster Fisherman’s Co-operative and we took a tour of their facilities. This was a great tour providing us an insight into the lobster industry in the area.

Some facts…

• Brolos came into being in the 1950’s.
• 98% of the lobsters caught and processed by the co-op are exported to China
• The best quality lobsters return $100/kg to the fishermen and sell for up to $500/kg in China
• The lobsters are chilled down to 5º Celsius before being packed in special wood-shavings for exporting live to China
• Once in China they are released into holding pens and kept alive until they are reading for cooking in restaurants
• The day of our visit a truck was loaded with 30 tonne of fresh lobster to be taken to a new processing facility in Welshpool WA, just 4km from Perth’s international airport (so 30,000 kgs x $100 = $3,000,000)
• All profits are returned to the co-operative and distributed through to the fishermen members

Here are some excellent video’s (from YouTube)…

Geraldton Sydney II Memorial

There are several worthy tribute memorials along the West Australian coastline to the sinking of HMAS Sydney II by the German Auxiliary Cruiser Kormoran on 19 November 1941 with the loss of 645 Australians

We had already visited the memorials in Carnarvon and Denham but the Geraldton one (maplink) is the most spectacular by far. You can learn more about this important chapter in Australia’s history at the Wall of Remembrance which bears the names of the 645 men who lost their lives. The centre-piece is a dome on seven pillars representing the seven states and territories of Australia.

The dome is made up of 645 silver gulls that form a canopy. Fittingly, a bronze figure of a woman waiting for the return of her loved-one, stands at the memorial looking out to sea.

The fifth and final element was completed for the 70^th anniversary in 2011, a simple recessed pool with circular terraced steps leading to the bottom where a map of shipwreck site is engraved. 644 Silver gulls are etched into the granite bottom, with a two metre high vertical silver gull (representing the 645th person) emerging from the pool.

We visited the memorial during daylight hours and returned to check it out at night to see how it looked under lights. On the way back to our caravan checked out St Francis Xavier Cathedral which was all lit up too. Really glad we did the night trip too.

Some links…

• About the Geraldton memorial
• Wikipedia – search for HMAS Sydney II
• ABC News article – locating HMAS Sydney (16 March 2008)
• Australian Navy website
• TripAdvisor

Day trip to check out the Wreath Flowers (Mullewa)

If you are around Geraldton in September and into wildflowers you must take a trip out to a small town called Mullewa to view a natural phenomenon, which only occurs in one location at Pindar (roadmap), called the Wreath Flowers.

This event only happens over a short period of time and these Wreath Flowers apparently only occur after the road verge as been graded (or so we were told). We were fortunate enough to be able to make the short (in WA terms) 280 km return trip spending about 15 minutes on location; but I must say it was worth the effort. The route takes you through so may spectacular displays of WA wildflowers it is absolutely stunning.

Stopped off at the Mullewa Pub for lunch which was a bit of a step back in time (like 1970’s).