Geraldton

Geraldton is a small  coastal city with a population of about 35,000 and is 420kms from Perth.
The area around Geraldton is a wheat growing area which made such a change from the outback terrain. They actually farm sheep as well so some of the area reminded us of parts of NZ.
We spent a great day looking around the place and visited some really interesting sights.
The museum was so interesting as much of it covered the story of the ship wrecking of the Batavia in 1629. Its a fascinating story as the ship was the flagship of the famous Dutch East India Company known as VOC and on her maiden voyage it struck a reef at the nearby Abrolhos Islands.
 What followed was a mutiny,rescue and punishment of the crew and it was detailed fully from notes of the commander.
In the museum they have many of the coins, cannons  and even an original stone portico which was bound for Jakarta. They have it erected in the museum and its very impressive, it was stowed as ballast on the boat.

A replica Batavia long boat the shipwrecked crew built to sail to Jakarta

The other interesting place we saw was the impressive memorial to the HMAS Sydney which was a WW11 cruiser which was destroyed  during a fight with the German cruiser Kormoran of Shark Bay in Nov 1941. None of the 645 men survived and it was not until 2008 that the wreck was found in 2450 metres of water. It is on Mt Scott which overlooks the town and sea, it remains the single event that has resulted in the largest loss of life in Australia.

The dome made up of 645 metal birds