Horrocks
After a very memorable Yuletide with the Seagulls in Kalbarri we decided to spend New Years Eve together at Linga Longa camping at the historic Lynton Station near Port Gregory.
Linga Longa
Linga Longa is a farmstay campground set on a working farm, which itself is set on part of the historic Lynton Station. We had booked here for ten nights over New Years Eve in order to ensure that we had somewhere to stay during the school holiday period. In hindsight it was probably a bit too long but it was also a welcome chance to slow down and relax after a long time spent travelling down the northern W.A. coast.
The Seagulls opted for a shorter stay in order to move on to Northampton and Geraldton a bit sooner. We drove together for the first time from Kalbarri hugging the coast road. The drive was scenic and uneventful until we turned into the Linga Longa access road and the Seagull’s almost wiped out a foolish quad bike rider who didn’t look before pulling onto the road. Thankfully Gary was alert and managed to slow and avoid them.
Linga Longa was the first place that we came across the leaning trees of the Greenough region, which are quite common and a little bizarre. The strong westerly winds blow salt spray onto the western side of the tress, which burns the leaves on that side making the easterly side heavier resulting in the bowing to the ground over time. We can vouch from our ten days at Linga Longa that the wind is never-ending. You either get the cool but salty westerlies or the stinking hot and dry easterlies…
But that said… it is a hugely interesting place. The owners, Jenny & Greg have their own airfield mown into the paddocks. As well as running their sheep and cattle, they look after the on-site museum and still find time to go fishing and swimming at Port Gregory. They’ve done an great job fitting the camping area out with power and tanks for water and also have some dongas, which are beautifully painted to look like log cabins…
The mouth of the Hutt River is just over the road from Linga Longa and is better known for the, now defunct, Hutt River Province. This was a (tax dodge) micronation that existed from 1970 to 2020. We wandered over on one day to have a look at the beach only to discover that we would have to wade chest deep across the river to get there… or scale a small rock face. Still it was quite a pretty spot with a couple of W.A. black swans there paddling around.
On our last night there a para-glider turned late in the afternoon and went for a quick flight before sunset. It turns out that this chap had flown across Australia from Linga Longa to Coffs Harbour, an awsome achievement. He was back in W.A. and decided to drop in again at Linga Longa. It was only a short flight because the wind sprang up as the sun was going down and you could see that he had to fight his way back onto the ground. It made for quite interesting and unexpected viewing experience. He also went for a flight the following morning as we were packing up which looked like a much easier flight in the still morning conditions.
New Years Eve
After spending and excellent Yuletide with the Seagulls, New Years Eve promised to be yet another great celebration. Linga Longa normally has a camp get together, which we did, but the owners (Jenny & Greg) were off to the neighbours this year so we had a brief drinks session in the museum area before splitting off to do our own thing.
Given that, like us, the Seagulls enjoy an alcoholic ginger beer, Sandy cracked open the vodka and mixed it with a Matso’s ginger beer, threw in some fresh mint and and lime slices and… thus came into existence the ‘Linga Longa Mule’… our new favourite cocktail.
Gary cooked a superb lamb roast on our Weber BabyQ and Rob did roast veges in the air fryer. These were washed down with plenty of 19 Crimes shiraz that had become our goto wine of choice. We drank and chatted on into the night until the New Year rolled. Everyone survived the next morning relatively unscathed…
Pink Lake
Only a couple of kilometres from Linga Longa on the way to Port Gregory is Hutt Lagoon, also known as the Pink Lake. We passed it a number of times during our stay and noticed that the colour change quite dramatically as can the level of the water. The pink colour is the result of a type of algae that produces ß-carotene, used in food colouring.
The lake is actually below sea level so saltwater seeps in as well as rising up from springs. Apparently the water level fluctuates with air pressure more so than evaporation. Regardless of the hydrology and science behind it… it is a visually stunning body of water.
Port Gregory
A few more kilometres on from Hutt Lagoon is the small seaside village of Port Gregory. It is a small holiday village with lots of shacks and a general store. One of the attractions is the high coastal sand dunes used for trail bikes, quad bikes and dune buggies.
The beach is sandy and quite attractive with a long sweeping reef that halts the wave and creates a calm lagoon area where plenty of boats are moored. Like most W.A. beaches you can drive onto the beach and there were quite a few 4WD’s taking advantage of it.
Whilst we were there we watched a bloke with ‘city 4WD’ coming off the sand behind another vehicle, with a custom-made 4WD dune buggy behind him. As he approached the ramp we could see that he had no idea about driving on soft sand and knew he was going to get bogged as he dropped his revs. We could also hear the dune buggy call from behind, “Keep going… keep going!!!”. No sooner than that then he bogged and dug in. The dune buggy pulled around him and the ‘city 4WD’ suffered the shame of being snatched out of the sand and up onto the ramp.
Horrocks
The Seagulls moved on to Northhampton after New Years Eve, which is only 40km from Linga Longa. We arranged to meet up for the day at Horrocks, another small coastal village halfway between the two.
Slightly larger than Port Gregory, Horrocks has a golf course in addition to a general store/cafe. We met there for a coffee before wandering down to see the beach and wander along it for a bit.
We had decent lunch of fish’n’chips and fish burgers at the general store and bade farewell to the Seagulls again until we met up again at Northampton. Unfortunately the lunch didn’t sit too well with Gary who suffered from a severe bout of indigestion that night that had them both worried. Luckily we did not suffer any ill effects continued to enjoy our stay at Linga Longa.
Just up the hill from the camping area is the partially restored Lynton Station homestead. The Lynton Historical Society has kept the homestead in good repair and you are free to wander around and through it at your leisure. It contains some displays but most rooms are fairly empty.
Sections of some walls are worn away and show some of the onstruction details including plaster rendering over thin laths of timber. The wood stoves and fireplaces are still in place. If you close your eyes you can smell the stews and bread that would have been produced from them back in the day.
Lynton homestead was built by the magistrate of the time who was a bit of an entrepreneur trying his hand at farming/graing and whaling. There was also a cannery established at Port Gregory, which was shelled, mistakenly, by a Japanese submarine during WW2.
The homestead is an imposing two storey building with high and low verandahs.. There is also a basement area that was a little creepy especially when looking up at how steep the steps from it were. Around the outside were som gardens with some interesting plants we haven’t seen anywhere else. They had green buds arranged in a conical shape that turned yellow as they opened with long red tendrils poking out. If they were a bit bigger you could be forgiven for mistaking them for ‘Triffids‘…
Back down the slope near the campground is the museum, which is freely open to the public and consists of a large brick shed with rooms of full of exhibits of antique tools, artefacts and equipment. Out the back there is a beautifully preserved horse carriage.
One little fact that caught us by surprise was that ‘Anna Leonowens‘, made famous in ‘The King And I‘ lived at Lynton after an unsuccessful attempt to set up a girl’s school in Perth. Her son was born at Lynton before her husband died and she moved on to her more well known period as the Governess to the Thai King (Siam).
There are two entrances to Linga Longa. At the southern entrance near the Hutt River mouth are the preserved ruins of the Lynton Convict Hiring Depot. IT was built and operated from 1853 to 1857, which was not a particularly long period of time. It was the first convict hiring depot north of Fremantle.
Despite the effort put into building it, it failed because of a scurvy outbreak due to the lack of fresh vegetables in that time. It looked like a pretty bleak existence from skeletons of the buildings that are left standing.
You are free to wander around the site, which consists of a barracks, bakery, store, administration building, cells, hospital and lime kiln for making cement. After looking around Lynton Station and these ruins you are struck with how harsh life was back in the 1850’s in Western Australia. Not only is W.A. a long, long way from anywhere else… the places within W.A., like this, are a long, long way from each other.
Northampton is only 40km away, a short drive for us these days but a long way back in the horse and carriage days. Life was above the subsistence level back then but not too far above it.
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