24th April 2012 ... Geraldton

Today we went for a drive into Geraldton..which is about 70 kms from Dongara..


The city is perched near beautiful coastline to the west and rolling hills and breakaway ranges to the east. The Chapman and Greenough Rivers frame the city to the north and south. 

While driving into the main town, you see lots of floral gardens with  many different colours..

Geraldton a host of holiday activities, especially water sports. Windsurfing, kitesurfing, surfing, fishing, diving and swimming or relaxing  on the white sandy beaches,or strolling the shorelines.

Geraldton also has a strong maritime feel, largely because of the Fishermen's Wharf. The boat harbour is a hive of activity during the fishing season when a multi-million dollar fishing fleet brings in yummy rock lobster. It is also a great spot to fish and enjoy an ocean sunset.  At the nearby Geraldton Port occasionally you see tug boats guiding huge vessels into the port - which is viewed from the city shores.

The one place we really wanted to see was the hill top memorial to the 645 lost sailors of the HMAS Sydney II's maritime disaster in 1941. This stunning memorial overlooks the city and harbour.

November 1941, the HMAS Sydney was lost off the coast of Geraldton whilst engaging the German Raider 'Kormoran'. which also went down.

The memorial has a concave  Wall of Remembrance which bears the names of all 645 men who lost their lives. 

The centre-piece is a dome surmounted on seven pillars, representing the seven states and territories of Australia. The dome is made up of silver gulls that form a beautiful canopy.

There is also a stainless steel  bow representing  the HMAS Sydney... which flies the Australian Flag. 

A bronze figure of a woman also stands at the memorial. She is holding her hat against the sea breeze. She is anxious, tense, her gaze forever fixed patiently on the horizon. She is eternal, the figure of a Waiting Woman, grieving for her lost loved one. 

The mystery of what happened to the Sydney has haunted the surviving relatives ever since the vessel went down. Especially the young women who in wartime romances had married or promised to marry sailors from HMAS Sydney. Betty Bell, a nurse at Royal Perth Hospital  married Fred Schoch, an officer engineer. The ceremony was held at her local church  just days before Fred's ship sailed from Fremantle on its last final voyage. Although Betty re-married after the war, she never stopped worrying about her first husband's fate. Her greatest wish, repeated over and over again, was that his ship be found in her lifetime so that her mind could be set at rest.


She got her wish...On 17 March 2008 it was announced that the wreck of HMAS Sydney had been found. It brought a measure of peace to thousands of grieving relatives of the Australian and German servicemen who had sacrificed their lives all those years ago. 


Amazingly the figure of the Waiting Women which had been placed in position years before the ship was found..had infact been placed looking at the exact spot where the ship was eventually found many years later..


They have recently added a circular water fall showing the  position of where the ship was found placing a gull at the position of the wreck... It's a beautiful Memorial and well worth seeing.

We had lunch on the outside verandah at the Dome Restaurant overlooking the seafront before we returned back to Dongara...