Horrocks Beach

October 3 – 5, 2012

After looking at the pink lake at Port Gregory,

 

we had lunch by the beach there.

Horrocks Beach is a small fishing village where the bay has big waves breaking over an extensive  reef -  typical of the beaches we have been to, along the WA coast.

There wasn’t a lot to do except for walks along the beach, so we went into Geraldton to do some shopping, buy some fresh fish, find a spot to post the blog, and look around. The Museum has several displays about the ships wrecked along this coast…they have only found and salvaged the wrecks over the last 50 years.

Huge stone blocks all cut to specific shapes and sizes, were salvaged from the wreck of the Batavia…apparently they were carried as ballast, with the intention of using them to build a portico as has been erected here.

Anchored in the boat harbour outside the Museum is a replica of the longboat of the Batavia: 10.7m long with a beam of 3.3m.

 Amazing to think that 47 survivors were crowded into such a small vessel that sailed all the way from Geraldton to Jakarta 1500 nautical miles! …. Similar to the crowded vessels with asylum seekers coming to our coast.

On a walk at Greenough (pronounced Grenuf!) we watched a young Osprey trying to catch a fish in the shallow river….he was unsuccessful, and eventually dried off on a pole.

Hope there'll be some good birds at Riverside Sanctuary.