Country Retreat - 16. Old Wrecks

Not far down the road we slowed and stopped when we reached a double gate across the road, with a big sign – ‘No Entry – Private Property’. “Ok, so all the land on the South side of the road, from the highway to this point, is an additional property we purchased, and it is a little larger than the two other properties combined, being 1,710 acres, where the other two are only 1,132 acres in total,” Gramps announced.

“Wow. Does this property connect up to the other property?” I asked, “Unfortunately no, it does not, there is a 1.2-kilometre gap in Private land that separates, us, but if you look to your right, you see that fire break heading north, that goes directly to our Southern Boundary, but there is no gate at that location. We have made an offer on the 402 acres of land to the north, so we can have it all joining up, we are just waiting for a response to our offer,” Gramps replied to my question.

“Why are you purchasing so much land?” I asked Gramps, “Well if you add up all the farmland at Moore plus the three properties at Upper Swan, that totals up to over 5,787 acres, whereas here the four properties including the land we have made an offer on, totals up to just over 3,240 acres, so we are trying to even it out a bit so all our grandchildren inherit a good amount of land,” Gran explained.

After another overnight stay in Ledge Point, we packed up soon after breakfast and checked out of our accommodation, before we started to head south back to civilisation, firstly by going down Indian Ocean Drive, which becomes Wanneroo Road, then turning left onto Ocean Reef Road, which becomes Gnangara Road, until we reached West Swan Road, and from there it was just a few minutes until we reached home, just before lunchtime.

“Hello, welcome home, did you have a good weekend away?” Jarrad asked us as we pulled up to a stop near the house, “It was ok I guess, plans changed unexpectedly and we ended up spending the weekend at the beach up the coast a little way,” I replied to his schoolmate. “Oh, sorry to hear that it didn’t go to plan, but it's always nice to spend some time at the beach, right?” Jarrad said, “Yes, I guess so,” I responded.

“Well, I just came over to check on the horses, both of yours are doing fine, although I didn’t ride them so they may want you to do that. I will catch up with you tomorrow at school, ok?” Jarrad said, and I just nodded and gave a short wave, as I retried my luggage from the boot of the car and headed inside.

I was still a bit moody about what had happened on Friday, so to try and shake it off, once I had put my dirty clothes in the laundry, and had a light lunch, I headed outside to take my two horses for a good work out, which kept me busy for the rest of the day, returning indoors just on dusk after I had brushed down, watered and fed the horses. “Go and have a shower Oscar, dinner will be another half an hour yet,” Gran said to me, and I nodded that I had heard her before heading to my room.

The following day, was just a normal school day for me, although I had my mind on other things, as a story of the famous shipwreck off the west coast of WA had come to mind, so when the bell sounded for lunch, I headed straight for the library to do some research. I was a little surprised to find out that the famous Dutch shipwreck is due west of the southern boundary of the land we currently own on the coast, and it got me wondering if there were some interesting stories about this.

Closing down my search online, I headed outside to quickly eat my lunch, while sending a text to Gramps. “Just discovered that the Gildt Dragon shipwreck is offshore due west of our southern boundary, who owns the remaining land west of us?”. After pressing send, I headed to my locker, as I knew that lunch break would be over shortly, and I received a response from Gramps just as I arrived there.

“Not sure, but I will look into it, maybe we can purchase it and turn all the lands closest to the coast into a private reserve, and just use the cleared land for farming and any other project. Talk to you about it after school,” was Gramp's reply and I smiled at this. “Where have you been? We have been all worried about you,” I heard Rebecca say as she approached me, with Jarrad and Giles close behind her.

“Chill guys, I was in the library doing a bit of research, nothing to worry about,” I responded. The rest of the day was just class after class, and I was fairly distracted for the whole afternoon and pleased when the final bell for the day sounded. “Ok Mr, what the hell is going on, you have been acting strange all day, and even more this afternoon,” Rebecca said to me with Giles nodding his head in agreement to what she said.

“Look, I am working on a project for my Gramps, I can’t say anything about it yet, but when I can, you guys will be the first to know. I have to go, as Gramps will be waiting for me in the car park,” I explained, as I dumped the school books I didn’t need into my locker before I slammed the door closed and locked it and began speed walking down the passageway.

“How did you go? Did you find out anything?” I asked Gramps as I climbed into the vehicle, and Gramps chuckled, as I secured my seat belt. “Well, I had a very interesting chat with the Shire CEO this afternoon, who is a friend of the family, and I learnt a few interesting facts,” Gramps said to me, not bothering to start the vehicle. “What did this CEO dude have to say?” I asked, which had Gramps laugh out loud.

“I am not sure if Elliot would like being called this CEO Dude, but that’s another thing. What I learnt is that several things have happened in the past few years. Firstly, the Catholic Church owns a large chunk of land on our southern boundary, from Indian Ocean Drive to the coast, which is about 1,500 acres in total. Below them is a 700-acre block of land just a few kilometres north of the Seabird township, which has a proposal for a tourism development, that includes a caravan park, a resort and strata title homes.

So when I informed Elliot that our family owns a few parcels of land that run along 6.8 kilometres of Indian Ocean Drive, at Brenton Bay, with 1.2 kilometres of our western boundary located just a few hundred metres from the coast, and that I was interested in turning some of the land into a private nature reserve, this sparked some interest.

He has asked me to come and have a meeting with him and a few of his Shire council staff and Shire councillors, about this, and I said that I could, but it wouldn’t be until Friday afternoon, after 4 pm, which he was agreeable to. I would like you to be at this meeting, that is why I chose that set time,” Gramps said to me.

“Wow, that is amazing, so what do you think they want to talk about with us?” I asked, “I am hoping that they may be agreeable for us to purchase the last slab of land located south of our main two blocks and due west of our newest purchases of land so that we can make all of that area a Private Coastal Reserve,” Gramps said to me.

“That sounds great, does that include the coastland directly offshore to the shipwreck?” I asked, “Not quite, the shipwreck is located about 2 kilometres south and directly out from that position, but it is very close, and from what information that I have read so far, there are a lot of historical points of interest along the coastline, from north of Ledge Point down to south of Sea Bird,” Gramps replied.

When we arrived back home, I went to attend to my horses giving them a good brush down and feed, before heading back into the house to start my research, and Gramps gave me a list of points of interest to look at.

Seabird: Seabird (18740) Wreck Site Coastal Camp (Pre 1930) & Soak (Post 1931 Guilt Dragon Camp.

Money Desert: 17^th Century Coins & Japanese Silver Bars from Vergulde Draeck (1656) Wreck

Mission Well: Coastal Camps – New Norcia Mission Mid-19^th Century Dragon & Eagle Artifacts found & Given to Bishop Salvado in 1800’s European Grave found near Mission Well

Eagles Nest South: Skeleton found in 1931 Survivor Relic (Vergulde Draeck)1656 found Shipwreck Material found Religious Medal (Early 20^th Century) found Fresh Water Spring located on the beach at low tide

Eagles Nest North: Skeleton report found 1960’s Vergulde Draeck Related material found Site of a Cairn near Coast Camp

Offshore: Wreck of Vergulde Draeck (1656)

Breton Bay: Venus (1923) Coastal Shipwreck Manakoora (1946) Coastal Shipwreck Thompsons Well & McCormacks Well Ant Lion Well & Ledge Well & Indigenous Contact Site