Somewhere Else

Several weeks back we featured some unusual ornamental sofas. Here are some more. This strikingly modernistic group of sofas is in Perth’s riverside suburb of Minim Cove. There are seven of them and they are known as the Seven Sisters.

Those boats on the river occasionally go hard astern. But when you try relaxing on these solid steel and limestone sofas, your feelings may be better described as “harder stern”.

Well, we were a bit mean yesterday – we mentioned several vintage caravans that you couldn’t actually see in the photos. One was the 1950s teardrop, which was hidden behind its Bedford tow vehicle. That’s it above, filled with 1950s memorabilia.

Another was the 1966 Propert folding caravan below. Both these vans belong to Brian L of Perth.

Nearby there were this impressive 1936 Fargo pickup and a Sunliner fibreglass caravan:

We didn’t tell the whole story about the Brookton Old Time Motor Show in our post yesterday. There was one other thing that really interested us at the show – a group of vintage caravans. There were 11 of them altogether, and most were towed by classic cars.

The photo above shows a 1960 Fairlane with a Franklin (on the left), an FX Holden (okay, a model 48-215 for the purists) with a 1967 Viscount, and Bedford truck towing a 1950s teardrop.

Then there was an Austin 1800 towing a 1966 Propert folding caravan and a 1958 Chev Biscayne with a 1959 Road Cruiser (yes, the same ones we showed you last week):

And the lineup continued with an American Fairlane towing a 1950s Quest and a 1958 FC Holden (GM) towing a 1968 Viscount Valiant:

That last rig belongs to Chris D of Bridgetown, and was taken on a marathon 32,000km journey from the southwest of Western Australia to far north Queensland and back during 2008-9.

Yesterday we visited the small country town of Brookton, about 150km southwest of Perth. Things are generally fairly quiet in Brookton, but the town has one big claim to fame – every two years it holds the Brookton Old Time Motor Show.

The 2010 show was held yesterday and it was a surprisingly large event. There were hundreds of historic vehicles, ranging from one horsepower (above) through to gleaming muscle cars and everything in between. They weren’t just static displays – the vehicles drove around the show ground in an impressive parade:

 As well as cars, there were trucks, working utes, vintage bikes and tractors. There were also working steam engines, like these miniature marvels:

That steam engine in the foreground was powering a miniature hay baling machine:

But maybe the strangest vehicle at the show was a motorised hospital bed:

We mentioned yesterday that we had a craving for icecream on our way to Busselton earlier this week. As it turned out, we didn’t get to an icecream shop until the last morning of our trip – and then we perversely decided to have coffee and baked ricotta cake instead.

The shop is shown above; a very Italian looking gelataria named Buonissimo (Italian for “The Best”). Well, we can’t comment on the icecream – but the coffee and cake were magnifico! Gelato Buonissimo is at 32 Queen Street, Busselton.

Earlier this week we spent a few days in Busselton, about 220km south of Perth. We drove there along the Forrest Highway, which was opened in late 2009. At the northern end of the highway, where it joins onto the Kwinana Freeway, there is this interesting art installation.

A quick bit of research online revealed that the sculpture is called Water Dance and is the work of North Fremantle-based artist Anne Neil and her team. The 8 cones and 16 poles sit on a small manmade island surrounded by a moat. The project symbolises water and water collection. However, we found that seeing those large cones also awakened a subliminal urge to have an icecream.

We were in Busselton for the past few days, and noticed this steam locomotive in Victoria Square – a grassy park across the road from the visitor centre. You see old locos preserved in many places, but this one has an important place in West Australian history. It was the first railway engine to operate in the state.

The engine is called Ballarat and it was built in Ballarat, Victoria in 1871 for the Western Australia Timber Company. It was used to haul logs to a timber mill, which was just north of Busselton – along the state’s first railway line.

We are currently spending several days in Busselton, touring around to see many of the decorated cows in the CowParade Margaret River 2010 public art event. There are 85 of these quirkily painted fibreglass cows scattered around a variety of towns in the Margaret River region. They’re on display from March to June.

The two cows shown here are in the town of Busselton. The one above is by local artist Chris Williamson and is titled Fin de Siècle Cow. The one below is by Joyce and Douglas Hatchett and is titled Moosic Mania. We will show you more of these amusing cows while the exhibition is underway.

Today we drove south from Perth to Busselton, making a slight detour to visit our favourite weird town in Western Australia – Gnomesville. It’s not on most maps, but you can figure out where it is from this road sign.

Gnomesville has a population of thousands, and they’re all gnomes. Each time we go there, we find that the population has grown a “little” larger. Some of the old-timers fade and then fracture with age, but they are replaced by an ever growing contingent of new gnomes.

Some of the residents look oddly like Snow White and the Seven … er … Gnomes (above). Others look distinctly less “grumpy”:

Most visitors to Kalbarri, about 450km north of Perth, go there to see the natural beauty of the area – rugged coastline, spectacular river gorges, wildflowers and so on.

But there is a darker side to the history of this area. In 1629 the Dutch ship Batavia was shipwrecked on a nearby reef. Most of the passengers and crew survived, but mutineers murdered about 110 men, women and children over the next two months.  Eventually officers from the Batavia who had gone to Batavia (Jakarta) for help returned and executed summary justice on the murderous mutineers. Some were killed and others were marooned on the mainland, in what is now Kalbarri. The site is now marked with a solemn stone memorial (above).

It’s one of the grimmest stories in Western Australia’s history and sounds more like fiction than historical fact. If you want to know more about these extraordinary events, visit Western Australian Museum – Geraldton. Or read our article about the Kalbarri castaways in the April 2010 issue of On The Road magazine.