Thank you Ethan for the wonderful picture you drew for us, it made us smile.
Of all mornings to sleep in we had to choose this one. We woke at 7am, about the time we wanted to be out on the road, as we had a big day of driving ahead of us. But with good team work we got everything sorted, even had time to shower, eat breakfast and pack everything up and still be on the road by 7:40am. Our morning coffee and tea became travellers!
The trip to New Norcia was relatively uneventful. I missed one turn off, but the GPS got us onto an alternative and we didn’t lose any time and then the same GPS gave us a short cut just north of the Swan Valley, down a dirt road. Not a good idea towing an 8m van!! We stopped for lunch just after the dirt road and found a draw and 3 bottles of wine had come adrift. All was OK, the wine was intact, and the draw still in one piece and no damage done inside the van.
We got our cheapest fuel yet today, coming down the hill into the outskirts of Perth we pulled into a Gull Service station and go our diesel for $1.37/litre, a far cry from the $1.81/litre we paid out on the Nullarbor and much cheaper than we can get it at home.
We arrive in New Norcia around 3pm and got a powered site at the local roadhouse. (We got to park in their side car park and hook-up to their power).
To fill you all in a little on New Norcia, it is the only Monastic Township in Australia, and was set up by a few Benedictine Monks back in 1847. They built a Monastery in a Spanish style, as well as an Abbey Church. In the years since several other church related building have been built here including a Convent, schools ( St Ildephonsus, and St Gertrudes), a library and education centre. Other notable buildings in town are the Hotel (built around 1900, and it is big), a Visitors Centre Museum and Art Gallery, a couple of bakeries (a new and an old one) and the Roadhouse.
Once we got into town we parked the van, and locked it up. Then we set out up to the Visitors Centre, and found we had missed the last town tour of the day (we missed it by 1 ½ hrs, they are held at 11am and 1.30pm), so we decided that we would just walk around all the sights and take in what we could.
Firstly we walked down to the Marian Shrine (a shrine to the faithful who survived a big bushfire), then had a look at the outside of the Monastery ( It reminded me of the Mission buildings you used to see in old westerns on TV). It is a very big building and would have been fascinating to look around inside, but it is a private building for the Monks, and even on tours, you only get to see into their chapel. We then walked over to the Abbey Church, which we were told was open, unfortunately it was shut. So we walked up by the old bakery then past the new bakery (the new one is much bigger than the old one, but they were both just square shaped white building of no real note. We then walked by the St Ildephonsus building, a grand scale building that was suffering a bit from time, with large cracks in its brickwork. From there we walked up and had a look through the cemetery. It had graves going back to the mid 1800’s and appeared to have a lot of religious order people buried there as well as the well heeled faithful. In one corner is the grave of an Irishman who appears (by his gravestone) to have been expelled from the church (strange he was still buried there!) We then walked by St Gertrudes, passed the back of the Old Convent and to our car. A short drive up to the Pub and we had a good look around, including making our way to the upstairs veranda via an impressive grand double stair case.
It was a really interesting afternoon and worth the trip up here, pity we didn’t make the tour and we will not be around in the morning to do it.
Tomorrow we head west to the coast, to see the Pinnacles south of Cervantes and then drive up along the coast to Geraldton.
We will be posting more photos tonight. From Kalgoorlie to Albany. 🙂
See the Flickr link
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