Short stay

Royal Steam Roller Flour Mill - 1894 -1933 Dongara

Main Street of Dongara

Dongara Hotel - opened 1867

Beach south of Dongara

As always - time runs out very quickly. We drove to another beach area just south of Dongara, and had a look around at some of the old historical buildings, but all we wanted to do really was talk. Try and reconstruct some of the events of over 40 years ago. Our memories are pretty good - but there were some things I remember and some Toby remembers and others are a bit cloudy. I had of course intended to stay longer but the Korea adventure reared its head, and I had to make some quick changes, to fit in the visit to Perth and Adelaide.

I would love to have spent longer, and wandered around and explored more. There are some wonderful old buildings, and there is a museum that I would like to visit. We had dinner that night with another bloke - a friend of Toby - who loves cooking and we wined and dined at his wonderful home. I was thrilled that Toby has such good friends, and especially impressed that they made me so welcome too. Wonderful. I arrived on the Tuesday, and had to leave on the Friday. No great haste. We kept up or chatting marathon, and Toby packed her car as she was planning to stay in Perth for a few days, and after lunch we trundled off, in no great haste. Instead of travelling the route that we had on Tuesday, we journeyed along the coast and I saw a little more of this remarkable Coral Coast. Little towns like Green Head with a population of 300, and Jurien that seems to have more. More photos.

Toby managed to meet up with two of her grandchildren whom she had not seen for a while, and I was pleased to meet her granddaughter. I'm thrilled that she was so thrilled to make contact with them as recently she had had limited access to them. The highway on both sides had many wildflowers, but yellow banksias were prolific (sorry - no photos), and we stopped to take a photo of a huge windfarm. (These things really fascinate me)

Soon we were driving through the Swan Valley with Vineyards and Wineries on either side of the road. One day I might manage a visit to one or two. We arrived at Toby's friends place around 6 pm, and soon the three of us were chatting like old friends. We went out to a pub for dinner, before returning for coffee and chocolates. It was early up the next morning, for my flight to Adelaide. I'm pleased I could go. At one stage I thought I'd miss out.