Sailing Around Australia; A Real Gem

11/1/2014 A real Gem

The three amigos’ around Australia sailing adventure has brought us into Hopetoun Western Australia. This is a real gem of in the gravel of small towns of Australia.

Brian (B2) and Eva on board Zofia seem to fill the role of advanced landing party as they can attract the locals in a matter of minutes (see Bremer Bay). This time they managed to find a real gem of a bloke called Keith (what, no Brian’s available?) while still in transit into the anchorage.

Keith is the deputy Shire President, president of the VMR, captain of the bush fire brigade and all round general good guy. He offered us rainwater and a trip out to the Fitzgerald National Park again, before we had even anchored.

With conditions forecast to be low swell, light winds and warm weather we couldn’t really have picked a better time to stay a few days in Hopetoun. We are anchored a few hundred metres west of a rock groyne and jetty, from which the locals and holiday makers have been taking pictures of the three boats from dawn till dusk.

When we took our dinghy to the beach, we were approached by one “senior aged” lady who thanked us for visiting and hoped we didn’t mind that she had taken some lovely pictures of our boats. She said that she got one really good one of our boats with the sun setting behind them. She thought she may call that one “sunset’ and send to her son who was a keen sailor.

We also met an ex Fusion 40 owner on the beach who was lamenting the sale of his boat a year or so ago. Fusion 40 is the brand of our boat Easy Tiger. There a few of these boats around, but if someone can pick the brand and style from the beach then they get my attention as they must know what they are talking about. This guy we nicknamed FIGJAM though as we didn’t get a word in edgeways. He was a glass fully empty sort of person, so we opted out as quickly as we could.

Our first impression of Hopetoun was, well, impressive. A clean tidy main street, with beautifully restored train station across the park from a nicely presented old world country pub greeted us as we approached from the beach.

Further along was a little country bakery, where B2 had already positioned himself and was interviewing the locals. Eva had already found some very cute little handcrafted handbags for her grandies.

We walked further along the main street past the Community Resource Centre that was advertising Zumba groups for this evening. We then went around the quaint cricket ground surrounded by the white picket fence. This looks like it would not be out of place in England.

Next morning Eva had organized our tour of the National Park with Keith. Maree, Eva, Leanne and I went, with Brian (B1) Lowe wanting to stay on his boat. In fact B1 now has the nickname of Barnacle, because try as we might we can’t get him off the boat. B2, I think was planning a second or third assault on the bakery while Eva was otherwise occupied. I know he must of achieved this as today they are out of sausage rolls.

Our guided tour provided by Keith was marvelous. He was able to give us a heap of information as he had done all types of jobs on site during the construction of the park including mulching and driving trucks loaded with gravel up the very steep hill.

The Fitzgerald National Park had a heap of state government funds put into it as a way of offsetting the devastation brought to the shire by the shutting down of the local BHP Nickel mine.

This work involved putting in sealed two lane roads, carparks and interpretive displays at each point of interest. There are also camp grounds with eco toilets, bbq’s and benches, all absolutely brand new and modern in design.

The scenery and views of places like West Mount Barren are breathtaking and the beaches are absolutely pristine and deserted.

Keith then concluded the tour with a visit to a left over from the BHP days. Then it was a Function Centre for the 1800 or so employees of the mine. Today though it is a brand new tavern and social centre that would easily match anything on offer in the cities.

All the locals tell us here that we have been very lucky to have found Hopetoun in this weather window. Apparently in can be a very inhospitable anchorage, with swell and wind waves from different directions. With the forecast for South Westerlies we will leave for a 20 hour run to Esperance on Monday.

One thing is for sure though all of us, even Barnacle, are glad we discovered this gem, Hopetoun.