DAY 97 – JURIEN BAY HERE WE COME…. THE WILDFLOWERS ARE IN SIGHT….

It was a sad morning indeed this morning when we said goodbye to Barb and John.  We have all had such a wonderful time on the road together, sharing many memories and many laughs, and John’s culinary skills will be missed greatly.  We ate like kings and queens when he prepared our evening meal.  

John and Barb waving us off as we left Geraldton

Just hoping now that they get their car sorted and the rest of their trip home will be trouble free for them.  

We had a relatively short drive ahead of us today, only about 200kms so we decided to do some exploring along the way as this is quite a scenic coastline.  

We passed through Greenborough not long after leaving Geraldton and noticed that a lot of the trees in this area were leaning inland. Obviously this is a very high wind area, and at one point along the highway we were able to stop for a photo of one of the famous leaning trees.  

Morning tea at Port Denison

Our destination for morning tea was to be Dongara and Port Denison which is only around 67kms from Geraldton.  What a lovely spot this turned out to be.  We headed to the beach front at Port Denison to actually have our cuppa and biscuits, and as we were sitting there and about to look over one of the travel brochures we had picked up, and Steve noticed the picture on the back of the booklet was taken exactly where we were sitting for our cuppa. 

This was such pretty spot,  they had made a safe family swimming beach inside the harbour area, and quite a few people were using it for all sorts of water activity.

Crown of Thorns Starfish

After morning tea we drove up to the Lighthouse and lookout to get a good view of the area.  It was quite windy, but the views were lovely and we enjoyed reading all the signage about Port Denison, the port the shipwrecks and other relative information about this area of the coast.  

Cormorant poo a they nest and hid from their predators in the trees.

We drove back into Dongara to check out the Estuary of the Irwin River. We saw the white colour on the trees lining its banks. The poo from cormorants who nest and hide from their predators in the trees. Nice! You can look all the way over to Port Denison from this vantage point.  There was a walk to the beach from up here but decided to give it a miss as the windy weather didn't make it very inviting to explore the beach.

The Big Lobster

We did see the Big Lobster at Dongara's entrance to the town. It's the thing Dongara is most noted for and there's a big fisheries building down near the marina.

Lunch in Leeman

Beach at Leeman

From here we headed a bit further down the coast until we came to Leeman, by now we were all ready for a pit stop that this became our luncheon destination.  We found a lovely little secluded beach with views to some rock islands offshore.  It was a little windy so we had to find a table that was at least a little sheltered by some of the foreshore trees.  

The final leg of our journey bought us to Jurien Bay where we were booked into a great Top Tourist park right on the beach.  This park was lovely with really great amenities, right across the road on one side to the town centre, and the front of the park backed onto the beach foreshore.  We were very happy to spend two nights here at $36 a night (with our TT discount).  This was so much nicer than the park we ha stayed at in Denham and for a fraction of the cost.  After this trip we could write a book about caravan parks and their amenities blocks.  

By the time we got into the park, it was around 4pm, so after setting up, the boys went for a quick walk down to the beach to check it out,  Kathy and I went for showers and it was time to prepare for dinner.

Early night tonight as we have a big day of exploring planned for tomorrow.