New Norcia and the Pinnacles

Our last full day in Perth and the forecast is for 19 and sunny. So after breakfast we head to the foyer for our 7.20 pickup. I had been trying to call the coach transfer company who are booked to take us to the airport tomorrow, over the weekend but couldn't get an answer so tried them while waiting for this morning's coach. Imagine my surprise when the coach representative told me that her records show that five of us are on one flight and the other two on two other separate flights! So she has three different pick up times for my herd. As it is now time to get on the coach I have to reconfirm all our flight times to another staff member when our coach gets to the Convention Centre tour start point. I now have two very worried kittens..... However I have convinced them (and myself) that it has to be an error on the tour operators part and we will all be going home together so at the Convention Centre I tell the staff member to change their records and pick us all up at the later time. We will find out tomorrow if I've made the right move or not... None of us had our flight tickets with us to confirm as we won't be back at our hotel until late tonight, there isn't any more I can do now.

But back to our tour. We have a full coach of 48 and our driver for the day is Paul, who turned out to be really good. We head north of Perth and travel through some really pretty towns. It is a good two hour trip to get to New Norcia where we stop at Australia's only monastic town, founded by Benadictine monks in 1846. So the story goes that 4 monks(2 Spanish, 1 French and 1 Irish) made their way to Western Australia to set up a monastery in the hinterland of WA once they determined an appropriate site.  So this took a couple of years and then somehow the French monk whilst cleaning his gun one day managed to accidentally shoot and kill the Irish monk, was then so upset over this, he returned to France, while 1 of the Spanish monks ended up spending most of his time sucking up to the bishop in Perth that it fell back on the remaining Spanish monk to settle New Norcia and be a jack of all trades in his efforts to bring the local indigenous population to Christianity (I've ad-libbed a bit with the facts, but it's my version of it). The latter dude sounded like a real good guy and was very fair and respectful of the Aboriginal people. We were able to go into the Abbey church plus one of the Aboriginal homes. The monastery became so successful that they also built a hotel (for the families of the children boarding at the school when they came to visit their kids). However, early on when the Perth bishop told the New Norcia monk that there was no more money at all for the monastery he decided to raise the money himself so hired a hall, sold tickets and put on a one man musical show that raised £80 which was sufficient for supplies for the monastery. After that he kind of distanced himself from the Benedictine Order, never receiving any more money from them, but instead raising everything himself. The boys' school eventually became co-ed, so St Gertrude's college was built. All the buildings have been beautifully maintained. The land is farmed for numerous grains and at one stage had its own flour mill, winning international awards for its macaroni! Apparently the current New Norcia bishop has 'ownership' of all the land so no one can buy a house there or own property. The only people allowed to potentially rent there are those locals who work on any of the properties or farm the land. The museum was really interesting and as long as you like religious themed art, the art gallery was okay too. We had a cuppa and bickies, then back on the coach to head to a Wildflower Farm. That was interesting too, but not many wild flowers to see as they are farmed elsewhere and dried at this property. Had a nice lunch there and back on the coach to head to the Pinnacles. A stop along the way to see a large area of different wild flowers that were quite lovely. One of my kittens managed to stand on a bull ant nest and to see this little old lady hopping about and slapping her legs was really quite hilarious and I couldn't help laughing while I'm helping brush and slap all the bull ants off her legs. Thankfully I don't think she has suffered any long term effects, however I'm still chuckling about it as I update the blog...

Back on the coach and then into Namburg National Parkwhich is home of the Pinnacles Desert. This place is AMAZING! There are thousands of limestone pillars up to 4 metres tall riding up from the dune sands. Some are jagged, sharp edged columns rising to a point, while others resemble headstones. You can walk right amongst them and even hug them if you want, you just can't climb on them. I love this place.... Finally have to get dragged away and back on the coach for our return to Perth as it is already 5.30 pm. Where has the day gone? It has been a great day. Lots of kangaroos seen on the drive back to the city. A very light rain falls for a short while, but all day it had been beautiful blue skies and lots of white clouds, so I have no ability to judge WA weather at all. Quite happy for it to rain at night as we have been thoroughly spoilt with such fine weather apart from our Margaret a River trip day. By the time most of the hotel drop offs have occurred we get back to our hotel just after 8. I gather all my kitty's for our last night and remind them of our check out time tomorrow, plus our coach transfer pick up time. Not sure what they will want to do tomorrow as we are out of our rooms by 10.30 and picked up at 3 pm but will worry about that in the morning.

I go straight to the hotel restaurant and order my dinner which I take up to my room. I am happy to have some time to myself and then fall into bed.