New Norcia - here be monks.

Just not many of them any more.  I think they said they are down to eight now, but they are recruiting if you're interested.  New Norcia is a monastery located a couple of hours north east of Perth. This link  A Short History will fill you in on the details that I omit, but the short sweet story is that in 1847 a couple of monks came to Australia from Spain and founded the Benedictine order of New Norcia in the great wilderness of Western Australia.  It's always mentioned as a place one must see when visiting in the Perth area and one hears of the fabulous New Norcia fresh baked bread and hand pressed olive oil.  So, given the excuse of a visitor from the US, Joyce,  my pal Robbie and I agreed that it was time to get up there to see what's what.

All this time I imagined that going to New Norcia would be a matter of driving to a town and then finding the monastery.  I had no idea that the whole town IS the monastery...the town plus about (if I remember the tour guide correctly) 22,000 hectares of surrounding land.   For some reason it struck me as very odd to be tooling along the main road and then suddenly happening upon a cluster of old style buildings and some paddocks with sheep.  One of those "blink and you might miss it" situations considering there is certainly no traffic light in town. 

We arrived at the museum and guest tour center for the 11AM tour and joined about 20 other eager tourists ready to delve into the history of Spanish religious settlement in WA.   Our guide ushered us like a herd of ducklings across the main highway (which in rural WA is a two lane road) and we started our tour at the first of several chapels.  We saw lots of chapels that day and what impressed me most about them all was that the majority of the wood work was done by one monk - he built alters, pews, tables, benches...the man was prolific.  There is also painting in most of the chapels, sadly though in it looks as if modernization is occurring and some of the original frescoes have been wall papered over.  Still, there is plenty to look at.

Our Lady of Guadalupe pictured below.

Most interesting engraved drawing on the main chapel walls.  Where else do you see disciples pictured in astronaut garb, Native Americans, or Japanese women?

The image above is inside this chapel.

This is a door at the girls dormitory entrance.  I found myself wondering if the young ladies of the day appreciated it in the slightest?

 Chapel in the girls dormitory.  Puts my dorm at Northfield Mt Herman to shame...shame I tell you!

 Detail of chapel dome.

Sheep that help keep the establishment solvent.  The monastery has always had to be self sufficient. 

Ale on offer at the hotel - a gorgeous old creaky venue suitable for weddings or a light toasted sandwich lunch.  We ran into a couple of fun women in the ladies room here and chatted for 20 minutes.

We enjoyed our visit and were lucky with both the weather and the wild flowers.   The flowers had started to bloom and the fields of what we think is canola were stunning on our drive up and back.  We finally had to just pull over to take some photos.  This is the remains of a former local agricultural hall...and this was also the view that captured Joyce's imagination most.  She wandered around through the bush taking photos, heedless of the warning "beware the bull ants".  A few minutes later she started shrieking, dropped her camera, and yanked her pants off unceremoniously to her ankles. That's what happens when the bull ants find you.  Up the pants first, and only THEN do they start biting.  If only I'd had the camera ready...