January 07 – Heading East – York and Northam

Today we are driving east into the center of Western Australia.  The landscape reminded us very much of the California foothills during the summer…vast golden fields punctuated with green scrubs and trees.  This is the wheat belt of Western Australia.

We took a detour down to the little town of York.  The old Main Street has been very well maintained with many of the 100+ year old buildings in good repair.  We had lunch in Grannie’s Kitchen Café and then walked the street.

The signs on some of the establishments were rather whimsical.

We stopped at the York Motor Museum.  

It is a world class motor museum with rare and one of a kind cars.  Some are on loan from a major collection in Perth.  Peter Briggs, the gentleman whose collection is the heart of the museum, established it to display his cars as well as to act as a tourist draw for the town.  

He had some very old cars...

and others were from the 50's and 60's.

There were a number of roadsters and sports cars...

and even a caravan (travel trailer). 

It was a pretty phenomenal collection and we both really enjoyed it.

He also refurbished one of the hotels.  And established some motor races in the area.  This all helps contribute to the vitality of the town, something rare in these small isolated communities.

Then we drove to our final stop for the day, Northam.  It was pretty hot out so we hung out in the hotel room until late afternoon and then headed out to see a few of the local sights.  One is the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Avon River.  It is one of the longest pedestrian bridges in Australia.

We saw our first wild kangaroo as we were driving past a field with sheep.  The kangaroo was grazing right along with the sheep.

We eventually found Morby Cottage.  It is an example of the original frontier architecture in the areal.  Unfortunately it was closed.

In our wanderings we found  St. John's Anglican Church, a very pretty stone building.

Adjacent to it was another stone building that looked like a church.  However, it didn't have any sign so we don't know what it was.

This evening we sat out on the wonderful terrace of our hotel and enjoyed a magnificent sunset.