Northampton to Denham

WA's First Government Railway Station


Thursday and Friday night we stayed in Northampton (about 60ks north of Geraldton). It's a little old town on the highway and boasts some beautiful old churches, pubs, museum, a convent and WA's first government railway station. It has a small main street with a few specialty shops and everyone there seemed so friendly. We stayed in the only park which has just changed hands from the shire to private ownership. It was obviously really run down and the new owners of a week were working non-stop to clean it up. There was an on going battle to stamp out free campers and locals short of water using them in the park.

We drove on to Denham yesterday and arrive here round 2ish. It was lovely to see the country looking so much better after all the recent rain. It's really a huge difference to this time last year when it was so dry and depressing. The big grevillias have massive flower stems on them already, so they (and all the other wild flowers) should be amamzing in a couple of months. We stopped off at Shell Beach on the way in and had our lunch and finally (after two years) got some photos of it. The "beach" is actually millions of tiny clam shells that are washed up there. When it rains, the shells calcify and set as hard as rock-there is a mine further up the beach where they cut out building blocks. Several local buildings are made with them, and the surface of this park is made of loads of loose shells that they bring in each year.



It was nice to pull into the park and be remembered, nice to have an en-suite for the month and lovely to see Ron, Carmel and son Craig (our neighbours last year). We had said as we left last year that we wouldn't be back this year, but Ron reckoned a couple of days ago that we would. Well here we are. I wondered who had died to allow us to have a hotly sought after ensuite and it seems Bluey and Joyce who "always" have this site aren't well enough to come up this year. Apparently though, they'll be back next year (Bluey will be 88 by then!)

We popped up and had a cuppa with Harold and Delys this morning and filled each other in on the last 12 months. They were also suprised to see us back this year. It's the third year in a row for us now, so I guess we can (almost) be considered regulars.