Cervantes & Geraldton Caching Trip

We decided it was time to place a new cache and set off for Cervantes, near where we're going to put it. We were stopped on the new Indian Ocean Drive by police and told the road was closed due to a fire.
So our quick trip turned into a very long one. We had to go all the way back out to the Brand Highway along and back in again! This did give us  the opportunity to check on one of our caches, 'Round Tuart', that we hadn't checked since we placed it at Tuarts Reserve.

The fire front from a safe distance

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We spent yesterday fixing a leak at the house in Cervantes and placing our new cache at Kangaroo Point and had a bit of a snooze in the afternoon. Today we drove to Geraldton and did a few caches here, even got a 'First To Find'.

We had a really interesting day actually. Firstly stopping in Dongara to take some photo's for my sister Vicki to use on Ancestry.com as she's been working on the family tree.

This is Priory Lodge where our mother went to school and I didn't know, but I'm sure Vicki did, that our Great, great, grandfather William Criddle, built it. Well he started the building and the Dominican Nuns continued with the building later on. It was a hotel and then a convent/school and now it's a hotel/motel again.

Once we got the Geraldton we went straight to our hotel and settled in and then back out again for more caching. One of them was at Oakabella Homestead, the most haunted house in Western Australia. We had to do the tour with Loretta (it was worth the trip out there just to meet her) who told us the story of how she came to stay at Oakabella. She was born in Canada and as a child had a recurring dream about a house, she didn't know what it meant until the day she arrived at Oakabella and saw this house, the same one she'd been dreaming about for years. She knew this was where she was meant to be. She has painstakingly collected thousands of objects from around the farm and homestead and continues to restore the homestead which will probably go on forever. For some reason I didn't take a photo of the outside of the homestead.

Source

 The Homestead

Kitchen

 Steve and Loretta our personal tour guide

One of the bedrooms inside the homestead

Loretta asked me to take some photo's in this room to see if I could capture a ghost. Not sure what that white mark on the wall is...I'm sure it wasn't there when we were going through the room!

                                                                                                           

These two photo's I've had trouble putting on the blog, it seems they just didn't want to be where I wanted to put them. And a really strange thing happened when I tried to take a photo of the wall, where Loretta says is the place where one of the Jackson family, George, accidentally shot himself while cleaning his gun. She told me the camera wouldn't work in that spot and it didn't....I could take a photo either side but not in the middle, the button on the camera went down but the camera wouldn't take the photo. I said to her...oh i'll put the flash on....I did...and the same thing happened. Very strange!!

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Didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Must have had the worst room in the hotel. We were on the second level and next door there was some kind of bar, with a verandah on the second level. People were right outside our window, screaming and singing at the top of their lungs....NOT HAPPY JAN!! Won't be staying there again.

Had breakfast a Macca's and set off for our first cache. Had a nice drive up the road close to where I used to live in Drummond Cove. (Went and had a look at the old house yesterday. Nothing has changed except a house is being built next door so the view is gone!) Then we took a drive to Nanson and Nabawa for a couple of fairly easy caches. But, it was getting very hot so headed back to town to do some easier caching! Ha! What a joke, very few easy caches in Geraldton, or maybe we were too tired, hot and bothered to be able to find them. Anyway after about 3 DNF's we decided it was time to head back to Cervantes. A stop for fuel and lunch and a quick chat with the woman that served us.  I used to work with her at Bluff Point. Couple more stops on the way home, had to get a couple of things at the shop in Jurien for dinner and stopped by police for speeding. We were lucky they just gave us a warning. Would have really topped the day off if we'd got a fine.

Now back in Cervantes, air-con on, Stephen asleep on the couch and the footy on the telly...ah that's better!

Home tomorrow.