Perth to Geraldton

Fortunately we still had time to explore one last area and within a couple of days headed off towards Geraldton, north of Perth on the Brand Highway, along WA Tourism’s Coral Coast. Although the connecting road from the suburbs took us through the edge of the wonderful Swan Valley, this time we pushed on and did not stop as we had several hundred kilometres to go.

A couple of years ago we had spent a day exploring the many wineries, market gardens and olive oil producers, as well as the local cheeses, chocolates, and dried fruit produced in this fertile river area, the site of the first wine-growing in WA, and maybe even the whole of Australia. Houghton, established 1836, is still a major player in the area, and indeed in Australian wines. Its grand gardens and riverside setting are always worth seeing when visiting the cellar door.

But on this trip we resolutely set our sights for the north. We had lived in Geraldton many years ago, but it was more than nostalgia that made us return. I’d been hearing about some great regional food, and we needed to see what was happening. Once known mainly for tomatoes and rock lobsters, we’d heard the dining had also progressed, well past the fish and chips we had enjoyed there in the seventies on the wharf.

The trip north is long (around 425km) and there are few towns. First, though we passed through the Chittering Valley lush with orchards and an infant wine region, and Gingin known more for its honey. West Coast Honey was closed on the day we passed by, and as it turned out on the return journey we were too late to call in. Next time, we promised. 

Much further north we stopped at Dongara, one of those towns with a twin into which it morphs at some point. Dongara-Dennison were once sleepy coastal towns with tree-shaded main streets, the base for weekend fishing camps and little else. Now, with the wealth associated with the lobster industry (western rock lobsters – panulirus cygnus – are highly prized in the state and elsewhere as a delicacy) and the area is booming. Driving around the towns we passed several ocean-side housing development estates packed with the beginnings of many luxury homes.

However I was more interested in the industry itself and was delighted to drop into the live lobster centre on the harbour, Westar Lobster just as a lobster boat arrived to unload its cargo of these swarthy writhing crustaceans. Inside we were shown the holding tanks where the larger 2kg ones are kept before being airfreighted live as export. The largest western rock lobster ever caught is said to be 5.5kg, but many of the ones being unloaded were between 400g and 500g and these would be cooked and sold from the centre, or sent to restaurants. 

The catch that day was fairly small, we were told – around 80kg (they can be as much as a tonne) – as it was nearing the end of the season which runs from late spring to mid-winter. December is the best month, and how lucky is that when there would be nothing nicer than to take a bottle of wine and buy your freshly caught and cooked lobster and enjoy it on the beachfront as the sun sets over the Indian Ocean? At Dongara’s Seaspray Cafe diners can choose a live lobster from a tank. 

Next we visited Dongara’s Silverdale Olive Grove, planted in 1997 almost at the northern extreme of viable olive planting terrain in the West. The owners, Murray and Wendy Small, have been processing the nine or ten varieties grown on the property since 2002 and the results are very good. The sevillano was buttery and nutty, and we could see why the manzanillo has proved the most popular with customers. The couple also infuses some oils with home-grown rosemary and salt-dry others. 

Next day we popped into Bentwood Olive Grove at Greenough. The name seems unusual until you learn that Greenough is famous for its phenomenon of  deeply bowing coastal trees which are bent completely sideways by the strong prevailing sea breezes. Here we met co-owner Beth Sievenpiper, busy cooking for the cafe rush expected later that day. Her olives were planted in 1996 and she began pressing their oil in 2002. 

Next to Geraldton , changed enormously in the thirty years since we had seen it. Now a thriving town and port, its most recent and stunning addition is a shining silvery cast-metal dome constructed of the shapes of 645 seagulls in a breathtaking filigree pattern to commemorate the  lives of 645 sailors lost in the 1941 sinking of HMAS Sydney, possibly just offshore from this point. 

There was little time and much to see here. The Geraldton Fisherman’s Co-operative is a must, especially for those who want to take a tour  and see the whole processing plant. We dropped in at the Boat Shed as well as Conversations by Indigo, both restaurants award-winning and highly regarded, and situated beautifully close to the sparkling water of the bay. 

On the way back to Perth we made an important detour. Waddi Bush Resort contributed a recipe to the Australian Regional Cookbook and I was keen to meet Martin Gillespie, the chef. He has quite a profile in the West and appears on TV as the Retro Chef. This remote resort is  off the beaten track, but is one of the best locations from which to enjoy WA’s extensive displays of wildflowers each spring, and it is also just half an hour from the amazing Pinnacles Desert with its strange rock formations. 

Gillespie is a key person in food in WA and as we arrived he was about to meet with other food leaders for important meetings leading up to a food event to be held in Perth the next month. 

Time was against us though, so we pushed on through quiet wheatbelt towns including Moora, noted for its stunning murals on many walls throughout the town, and arrived at the New Norcia Benedictine Monastery just as its museum shop was closing. Tragically, they were out of the bread that is baked here and for which they are justly famous – and which I had been tasting in my mind and anticipating for the past few hours.

“If you hurry,” the shop assistant told me, “there may still be some at the service station down the road.” Good tip. I hotfooted it down and bought the last two loaves of fruit bread which, as this was the end of our trip, I was able to bring home to Sydney the next day to enjoy at leisure. What a wonderful souvenir!