Day 88 – Friday 15^th October 2021 – ? Km

Our first stop this morning is the Agnes Water Museum, a pleasant small museum full of interesting stories & artefacts. The primary focus in the museum is Captain Cook & his landing here in the year 1770. Here we found out that the town of 1770 was named in the bi-centenary year, 1970.  The small settlement was formerly known as Round Hill, being built on the banks of Round Hill Creek and under a small hill known as Round Hill, named by Captain Cook in 1770 when he landed at this spot. We also found that Agnes Water was named after the small ship Agnes that was lost at sea & a tree was found with the word Agnes carved on it whilst the ship sheltered in Round Hill Creek during a severe storm. There was also a fair bit of interesting local history of the early settlers & how the small township started without power, water, roads nor any other trappings of civilisation. They had also the usual collection of sea shells, rocks & minerals plus some aboriginal artefacts. There was some interesting stories about some of the shipwrecks nearby, including a very recent incident in 2017 when 7 local fishermen lost their lives in the sea nearby.

We then drove down south & turned in towards Red Rock Beach & Wreck Reef. This is a very rough dirt road full of rocks & giant potholes. We drove very slowly with the car on its high suspension setting & bounced back & forth & up & down as we rocked along. At the end of the road is an equally rough car park with some signage telling us about the walking track. The walk is 3 hours return to the beach & recommendations to carry drinking water & food. We decide to give this a miss, at least the bush scenery is interesting, there are lots of healthy grass trees with vigorous flower spikes on them.

The lady in the museum gave us information on where the cairn is that marks the spot near where Cook & crew landed in 1770 so that is next on the agenda. Remarkably, it is very close to our campsite & when we went walking yesterday we were very close but did not see it. We had a short walk around here & enjoyed the view out towards the sea again & the mouth of Round Hill Creek. Today there was a kite surfer enjoying the strong winds.

Lunch was next & down from our campsite is a bistro looking out over Round Hill Creek & the boats moored there. We got a front table & ordered a seafood basket plus fish & chips as well as a couple of Corona beers. As we were sitting waiting I overheard some women talking in Hungarian so I talked to them & their friends, they were all Hungarians so I went & got Tereza & she had a good chat with them. A storm was threatening as we were finishing lunch so we hurried back to our van to close our windows, just in time. Luckily we only got the outskirts of the storm and a little bit of rain and a bit of wind. We sat in the van & caught up on some of our emails & paid a few bills plus did a bit of planning for the next part of our trip & booking in plus a bit of reading. Another storm came through a little later & again not much to it.

Cheese, bikkies & red wine finished another great day.