I am in danger of turning into a curmudgeon myself, as I bemoan the uninvited early morning noise, today the Monday morning business of rail and port and the raucous and expressive racket of the crows outside the window. Of course it was only our fault, having sat up late last night enjoying a concert on television, the incredibly talented pianist Lang Lang and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra playing one of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos and then Chris went on to stay up even later watching the cycling; the Giro d’Italia is well under way.
A good part of the morning was taken up with dinner preparation;
today I cooked an excellent roo stew in the crock pot, a great concoction of
onions, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms and of course the roo. Chris
contributed ideas and Worcester sauce, seasoning and curry were thrown in for
good measure, then it was all left to macerate in the pot for the day.
Today was set aside for a myriad of errands and
sundry business; printing of accumulated documents, booking a service for the
caravan, a new watch battery for Chris’s watch and a big grocery shop.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, we enjoyed a picnic lunch down on the waterfront
watching the seagulls bob about beyond the surf, one of the three ships in port
head off under tugboat escort and see there were still eleven ships lying far
out to sea waiting their turn to berth. We walked up and down the main
commercial street, checked out a couple of the shopping centres and had a good
look around the town.
I had wondered why Geraldton had been established
here where there is no river mouth providing a safe harbour and an appalling
lack of water.
For the first seventy or so years, Geraldton
residents relied upon wells and water tanks, which often ran dry in the hot
summer months. Some people would cart water from some distance to the south
where water was easily obtainable at shallow depths. Others used wells in the
valleys among the sand hills in the town. The first major breakthrough in Geraldton’s
water supply woes came in 1921 when Wicherina Dam was built on a tributary of
the Greenough River thirty kilometres inland from here. Finally water could be
piped in for town supply. This was however only a stop gap; now Geraldton now
draws its water from the bore field at Allanooka tapping a northern aquifer.
But how and why did Geraldton happen exactly here?
In 1849, the Freemantle government based schooner Champion anchored in the bay. Champion was carrying men and supplies
to establish the lead mining venture on the banks of the Murchison River at
Galena, one hundred kilometres north of here, previously referred to, and
soldiers for support garrison here on the bay. When it sailed for Freemantle a
few weeks later, it carried around a tonne of lead ore – Western Australia’s
first mineral export.
Thus shipping through the port of Geraldton began.
At first there was some debate about whether the port for the district should
be established in Port Gregory, visited yesterday, but Champion Bay chose
itself by virtue of its easier access in rough weather.
In 1857 the first jetty was built, initially a berth
for lighters to transfer cargo from ships anchored in the bay. From time to
time, as the bay silted up, the jetty was extended.
At that time there were only about one hundred
settlers in Geraldton, hence there was little to ship. The port mainly brought
in mail and provisions and exported wool and hides, sandalwood and mineral ore.
In those days the railway looped up around and through the town, down to the waterfront.
Work on the present port began in 1924. A 670 metre
breakwater was completed in 1926, with this later connected to the land in the
mid-1930s. Wharf construction began here in 1928 and the first reinforced
concrete berth in the state was officially opened in 1931.
By 1937 Geraldton had a grain export facility and
became one of the main grain export ports in Australia. After the trade embargo
on exports to Japan, the first shipment of iron ore from Western Australia went
out through the Geraldton port in 1966.
Today Geraldton Port is able to cater for ships up
to Panamex size with a 12.8 metre draft and a maximum cargo capacity of up to
66,000 tonnes. The main exports are iron ore and wheat. The port has two berths
dedicated for minerals and ore, one berth that is primarily used for bulk grain
export and two multi-purpose berths that are utilised for fertilisers, fuels,
general cargo and livestock.
An iron ore berth opened in 2008 to handle the
increase in mining in the mid-west. Today the Port has cruise ships visiting; that
I would like to see. Of course, during those later years, the rail line was
shifted away from the waterfront; a cutting was made through the sand hills to
the south and the line now runs more directly from the south, right past this
caravan park.
The Western Australia 1898 yearbook described Geraldton
as follows: “It is a great summer resort
for the mining population of the Murchison”. The same could be sent today
because it is now the R&R place for those who return to the town between their
shifts in the iron ore mines to the east.
It was also home to 40,000 military personnel during
World War II, but then statistics like that no longer surprise me; huge numbers
of military personnel were spread all over this land during that time.
Back at camp, the aroma of the roo stew met us at
the door. The tasting was every bit as good as that had promised.
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