SHARK BAY TRIP JOURNAL - JULY 2014
Saturday 19th July
Most
of the packing for this trip was done yesterday but we still didn’t get away
until around 10.30 am. We seemed to have remembered most things but I forgot to
pack the Ukulele. I don’t remember until we are turning on to the Great
Northern Highway by which time there is no turning back. We need to get to the
Batavia Coast Caravan Park in Geraldton by 5.00 pm or pick up the keys from the
letter box and find our own way to our camping spot. It rains most of the way. We
listen to the new Salvation Jane CD we bought called Something Old, Something New to lift our spirits. They
do a great version of Dylan’s Ring Them
Bells St Peter. I call ahead and change our camping spot so that we don’t have
to unhitch. We get in by 5.10 pm. It’s still raining.
Sunday 20th July
The trip to Shark Bay is uneventful except for a
short stop at Billabong Roadhouse where I buy some great vegie wraps for lunch
and leave a sample set of my Shark Bay postcards and a sample copy of my new
The Human Condition CD.
Entry Statement to Shark Bay World Heritage Area |
There is a new entry statement to the Shark Bay World Heritage Area which pictorially tells us what we’re in for. After setting up camp we go for a walk up to Stella Rowley Drive to look at some blocks on Sellenger Heights that Lexie is keen to see. They sure do give a great view across Shark Bay.
Monday 21st July
The main street of Denham |
I start the day with a bike ride and come
across a woman walking to the school with her lunch and figure that she must be
a teacher. I mention that I am on long service leave and inquire about the
number of staff at the school. She tells me that there are five staff; three in
the primary School and two in the High School. Most of the High School classes are run
by SIDE so it is a fairly small school.
After breakfast we book two tickets for the
Shotover Sail Tour for Friday. That should be a good day. I then buy a new set
of board shorts for the tour. I’ve had my old board shorts for about thirty
years and they are starting to look worse for wear. We then drive around the
town to look at the kind of houses being built on the new blocks. Most of the
new hoses are two story houses built in corrugated iron. They look great. We
stop in and visit a German couple who have built a transportable house which we
were informed about back in Perth. The house is also clad in corrugated iron
and is pleasant, with a good view across the bay.
After dinner we visit the local Art Space
where there is an advertised art class from 6.30 to 9.00 pm. We want to get an
application form for the Shark Bay Art Awards and met three very pleasant
ladies who are getting started on a coloured ink activity. They graciously stop
what they are doing and chat with us giving advice on good places to go to do
some plein air painting. Sally Capewell is the convener of the S.B. Art Awards
and fills us in on what we need to know. We plan to meet up with them again
next Monday night if we’ve got something worth showing to them.
Tuesday 22nd July
There is business to do in town. I meet
Adam, the manager of the Shark Bay Discovery Centre, and we discuss my Way Out
West drawing reproductions and postcards.
Inlet looking towards Little Lagoon
|
Little Lagoon |
After lunch we go on a reconnoiter drive to
check out possible sites for painting from the recommendations made by the
ladies at the Art Space. The first stop is the Observation Shelter at the inlet
to Little Lagoon. The shelter provides protection from the wind and offers some
colourful opportunities for painting so we agree to make it the first stop
tomorrow. A drive around the Little Lagoon shoreline doesn’t yield anything of
significance so we drive out towards Monkey Mia and take the left turn into Red
Cliffs on the track that Sally drew on her mud map. Nothing beats local
knowledge. This is indeed a good find as Pindan red cliffs give way to red
rocks lining the white beach with a curved blue bay in the background. This
will be the place to come back and do one of my large pastel drawings.
Red Cliffs, near Monkey Mia |
That’s enough for one day so it’s time to go
back to camp and relax.
Wednesday 23rd July
Today is the day that I am going to try out
my new painting workbench. I say new, but I’ve had it a year but haven’t had
time to unpack it. After breakfast we load up the Pajero and drive to the
shelter at the inlet to Little Lagoon. We unpack the painting workbench and put
it together. When completed it looks quite good. I then unpack my gouache
painting kit which I haven’t used before and get started. I’m painting the view
up the creek towards the coast and it offers the opportunity for the viewer’s
eye to travel up the creek and around a bend to the left. It’s around 10.00 am
if not a bit before.
I haven’t used gouache before so it’s all a
trial and error experience. What I learn is that being a largely opaque medium
you can paint lines and blocks of colour and then paint over the top with
further layers until you are happy with the result. It suits me a lot. The
stool I have is too low so I spend the whole time standing crouched over the
workbench. Aside from a pause for a cup of coffee and a banana I stay at the
job until 3.00 pm. Lexie is starting to get toey although she has also done a
particularly good water colour pencil and pastel drawing of the same view in
portrait format. I suggest she should use it as the basis for a textile wall
hanging to submit to the Shark Bay Art Awards exhibition. I finish covering the
paper with paint and call it a day. The painting is so-so but I’ve learnt a
lot. We don’t get to have lunch until 4.00 pm which is a bit late. I’ll have to
work faster in future.
Thursday 24th July
This is the day that I want to do one of my big
pastel drawings and the place I want to do it is at Red Cliff just back from
Monkey Mia. It offers the red cliffs as a complimentary to the turquoise blue
water of the bay just back from Monkey Mia, plus a lot of rocks to give the
drawing content. We get out there by 10.00 am and I set up my seat and drawing
board in the position that gives me the best composition.
Time stands still as I draw my way through
the composition using a red brown pencil. I stop and join Lexie for a coffee and banana break around 1.00 pm. Lexie
is working on a coloured texta drawing of the bay. I complete the composition
by 3.15 pm and after another coffee we drive back into Denham. I will now need
to complete the drawing in pastels back in my studio using a photograph as a reference. It takes at
least three days to complete a drawing.
Joel drawing at Red Cliff |
Friday 25th July
Today is our Monkey Mia experience. We get there around 11.00 pm and first have a look at the Department of Parks and Wildlife Monkey Mia Dolphin Experience Centre where we pay our entry fees and look at photographs and tourist souvenirs. I leave a set of my postcards in the hope that they will add these to their product range.Parks and Wildlife Officer giving the dolphin talk at Monkey Mia |
The feeding the dolphins activity is just
beginning and we are advised to go down and watch. Three dolphins have
conveniently decided to come in and be fed and a number of people have lined
the foreshore to watch. An officer from DPW is giving instructions on how the
dolphins should be treated which takes a substantial amount of time. Other DPW
staff then bring down tin buckets with fish in them and the dolphins are fed.
Everyone gets to take photos and by all accounts everyone is happy including
the dolphins.
Feeding the dolphins at Monkey Mia |
Lexie and I then go and have lunch at the
restaurant siting on the verandah looking out on the turquoise blue sea. A
little touch of paradise.
View across to the Shotover catamaran |
See how the main sail sets |
After lunch I go and get our hats and a
jumper. It’s hot but I think I might need it. We go and board the Shotover
catamaran for our three hour dolphin cruise along Monkey Mia Bay. We get a seat
up the front and are treated to various sitings of dolphins cruising in front
of the boat as we make our way up the bay.
We pass Red Cliffs and get to the end of the bay where we crisscross the
sea grass area looking for turtles and dugong. There is a siting of a turtle
down below but mainly we get dolphins. Unfortunately my camera battery runs
flat and I don’t get any dolphin pictures. Probably just as well as well as they
move fairly fast and they tend to all look the same after a while. By the time
we turn back I have my jumper on and Lexie has borrowed a yellow rain jacket
and looks like she’s in the North Atlantic somewhere. We’re glad to get back to
land and out of the cold wind.
The view across to Red Cliffs |
Saturday 26th July
Mary G performing with audience guest at Yadgalah |
It’s a rest day until we make our way to the
Yadgalah Aboriginal Club where Mary G is performing in the evening. We arrive
at 6.00 pm and for $25.00 each we get a meal where we join a line of folks and
serve our selves from the bountiful amount of food provided plus are treated to
night of hilarity from Mary G. All this takes place in a large tented building
lined with rows of tables and chairs. We sit next to Adda, a local Aboriginal
woman in her eighties. She laughs and tut tuts in turn at Mary G’s risqué
comments. Mary G is from
Broome and is Mark Bin Baker’s alter ego. His modis operandi is to select
audience members to come up on stage and join him as he performs his songs.
Each song can take a while to complete as he interrupts his singing to lambast
his accomplices or someone in the audience. It is all in good fun and the rest
of us are left in stitches. In between all the hilarity Mary G has some serious
things to say about Aboriginality which comes across in Mark’s original songs
and in the stories she tells. Mark is a master comedian and a good guitarist
and a night spent in his company is memorable and thought provoking.
Sunday 26th July
It’s Sunday and we decide to go to church. St Andrews-by-the-sea is an Anglican church built out of shell blocks cut from deposits of cockle shell at the shell block quarry at Hamelin Pool. It’s a charming building and so is the 9.00 am service led by the Minister, Philip Knife, and his wife, Kathy. Music is played on a church organ and we sing songs from past centuries as well as a couple of contemporary songs. The large shell font is particularly interesting. The people are friendly and we join them for morning tea under the rectory, another building made out of shell block. We discover that we know one of the couple, Terry and Cheryl Cowell. They are friends of my sister, Keren, and her husband, Geoff, and used to live in Kununurra. Lexie taught one of their children. Keren and Geoff have one of Terry’s fine paintings in their art collection. We have much to talk about but must eventually leave so that the minister can get on with his day.
Monday 27th July
St Andrews-by-the-Sea |
I’ve been starting most days with a bike
ride around the town and this time I decide to take my camera with me to get
some memorable Denham photos. I stop by St Andrews-by-the-sea and then make my
way down to the foreshore to see what the boats in the bay look like in the
early morning sun. They look great.
Denham foreshore |
Denham foreshore with boats |
Tuesday 28th July
Today we visit the new Shark Bay Marine Park
venue 10 kilometres back down the main road from Denham. It is an oceanariam
with lots of fish, big and small, including sharks and is a delightful place to
spend a day.
View at lunch, Ocean Park |
We start with lunch and a view across Shark
Bay which is stunning. Then we pay our $20.00 fee and join a tour through the
oceanariam with a male guide who likes to eat fish. Much of his commentary is
about how the various fish taste. I like how they look. His talk does also give us a lot of facts
about marine life in Shark Bay as we go from fish tank to fish tank.
Blue fish |
Sting ray |
Outside we are treated to the larger fish,
including two species of shark, located in big saltwater ponds.
Male staff member with fish |
Female staff guide with fish |
Wednesday 29th July
Monkey Mia Bay with pontoon and sailboat |
Thursday 30th July
Boarding catamarans at Monkey Mia for Sunset Cruise |
This is out last full day in Shark Bay and
the main event is the Sunset Cruise with Shotover tours out of Monkey Mia. This
leaves most of the day to get clothes washed and business done. I make an
appointment with Adam at the Shark Bay Discovery Centre and we set dates for
next year for an exhibition of my Way Out West series of drawings, my The
Kimberley Series of photographs and my ceramics, in the Rose Freycinet Gallery,
all of which I am very excited about.
Winching the main sail |
Lexie on board the Shotover |
The old man of the sea |