It finally dawned on us this morning that the countryside has changed over the past two days and we are now back in green country where there are wide farm fields of green and flowing water. The deserts and the dry salty coastal plains are no more. Unfortunately this change also signals that our adventure is winding down.

After a short visit to another beach side town, Horrocks, we stopped in at Northhampton a small non-beachside town and visited a local cafe called the Shearers Cafe. I asked the lady proprietor about the display of shears on the counter front and in particular the pair of shears with the silver drive shaft still attached.

It turned out that the proprietor and her husband had both worked as shearers in their younger days. She confirmed that modern sheep shears still use the mechanical drive. She also shared that a good shearer can shear maybe 250 sheep per day and they get paid a little under A$3 per sheep. She also noted that her father sheared sheep with the old hand shears shown on the face of the counter.

Northampton pretty obviously has a sheep farming heritage as the colorful sheep statues pictured testify.

We spent the night at an informal campground on the beach south of Geraldton and in the Northern Beekeepers Reserve.