On the wall of an historic settlement in Greenough, near Geraldton is a translation of the oldest known Aboriginal writings, written about travelling around with Europeans. I should have taken a picture so I could really do it justice, but each day starts with something like "onward and onward and onward and then we ate [such and such]...and onward and onward and onward until we reached [someplace]," etc.
That's how today seems. Onward and onward and onward until we reached our destination for tonight--this lovely beachside town.
We started the morning by meeting Janne and Chris at the park to walk the dogs. They had brought coffee and biscuits, so after we had photographed more spider webs, we stood overlooking the cemetery and had a farewell "party"of sorts.
Onward and onward to home to pack up the car, do last minute cleaning, and get on the road. Chris will be staying with the dogs in our absence.
After we had left the populated areas, we got into the countryside, with its red dirt and the fields of daisies and other flowering plants. Like Death Valley, spring does not come to the Australian countryside in consistent riots of color. While there are stretches of eye-blinding yellows and purples, there are also more subtle signs of spring...red things and fluffy white things, and feathery white things, and ball-like orange things (can you tell we didn't have a book of "Wildflowers of Australia" with us?)
Mostly it's just onward and onward to the next stop.
We stopped for a quick lunch in a place called Badgingarra, "the home of the badginburger." The sign for Badgingarra proudly announces that it is truly rural:
We passed some sand dunes and then were in Dongara, a lovely beach town with more of that blue...blue...blue water and a reef, which causes the water to break waaaaaayyy off in the distance.
From Dongara it was just a hop, skip, and a jump onward and onward to get to Geraldton, where, with some difficulty, we found ourselves a lovely motel. We have a 3-room suite overlooking the Indian Ocean. We went out to Subway (the only place we could find open) and brought back chicken terriyaki sandwiches, which we ate while watching the sun go down into the sea.
With no dogs, no serious internet connection, no cleaning or ironing or games of footy to distract us, we spent the evening having good heart to heart discussions, and solving the problems of the world. It's what I came here for, and was very nice...with more of same to follow, as this "vacation week" progresses onward and onward.
