8GreatEscapes - 1. Escape to Ningaloo - Pe... - Day 7 Bananas to Satelites ... : DriveWA

Day 7 Bananas to Satelites to Jettys - Carnarvon

On The Road With Chris Day 7 DriveWA Ep. 7

We were late – not very late – this time only 20 minutes but the bus was waiting for us at the Best Western Hospitality Inn Carnarvon when we arrived – we had telephoned ahead to try to prevent the tour guide giving up on us given we were not on time and he was very pleasant about it all. I dashed in – said hi to Manager Gail and the painters who were putting the finishing touches to some significant improvements – and we boarded the Australian Outback Escapes bus for the foodie tour of Carnarvon, followed by the Dish and the Jetty. A somewhat eclectic series of ingredients for a foodie tour but really interesting nonetheless.

Sadly our lateness cost us the banana packing tour as they had to get the produce to market in the freshest possible format so could not wait for stragglers but the decision to go directly to Bumbaks paid dividends as Jo Bumbak gave us a great tour of their banana plantation and we learned a great deal about the life and farm cycle of the growers and the bananas grapes and many other products that they grow and process and supply.

I’m not sure that the presenters and the Intrepid Escapees had expected to be enthralled but we were – right down to the description of how the bananas are prepared and yellowed (not ripened for market in Perth) – the plantation tour was great but the preserves and the other processed foodstuffs they had for sale were outstanding as were the choc coated bananas and ice creams they sold us at the conclusion of the tour.

So it was into the bus and off to the Dish – the NASA Communications station and satellite dish and which was heavily involved with a couple of sister dishes in Australia's Eastern States in the monitoring of the historic first manned landing on the moon - you may recall Neil Armstrong's - "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Well that was 40 years ago in the week we are loading this onto the website - this dish is pretty well preserved and one can climb up the outside and get a great view of the surrounding area whilst viewing its splendor – unusual experience.

I hope they can eventually get enough money together to eventuallu open the inside and surrounding base areas as they apparently have a lot of really interesting stuff there – space suits etc – I am fascinated by the NASA space program and there is a massive reminder of what was achieved and how hard it was in Carnarvon's back yard - somewhat under appreciated in my opinion.

So back on the bus and off to what was one of the worlds longest jetties – the Carnarvon Jetty where there is an excellent Heritage Precinct - sadly recently some idiot burned part of it out – which is I believe about to be repaired - there is a great little train ride on what remains of the jetty out to the water and the cute little train is a big hit with big and little kids alike.

Our presenters and cameramen inspect the balance of the Heritage museum which has a fascinating array of shearing and farm machinery from the area as well as a liferaft from Kormoran (which sank HMAS Sydney of course) and some other interesting artifacts from that mighty German armed merchant raider. There is a cave and monument along the coast north of Carnarvon where the Kormoran survivors came ashore and sheltered.

So returned to the Best Western Hospitality Inn and had a hot shower and changed and had an absolutely first class dinner in the motel where so many of the people invovled in the NASA moon landing had stayed all those years ago and you can see some of the memorabilia they left behind on this website.

Click to view our Swans to Ningaloo itinerary

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