Monastic town of New Norcia

In the Abbey Church. Unless you’re close-up, some parts look like chalk paintings. But in fact they’re layers of different coloured plasters ... scraped off to form the design ... called “sgrafitto”.
The 5am arrival into Perth [Perth-travel-guide-156950] meant that we'd have trouble resting our sleep-deprived heads in a hotel unless we paid for the night before. Because of this, we drove to New Norcia [New-Norcia-travel-guide-156468], less than 2 hours outside of Perth.

For a combination of reasons, we still arrived at New Norcia Hotel too early at 8am ... but were fortunate enough to get a room straight away.

We took a tour of this historic monastic town in the afternoon. It was founded by a Spanish Benedictine monk in 1846 to establish a mission for aboriginal people. It eventually expanded to include several schools, including some for posh whites (which subsidised the missionary work for the aboriginals).

Today it is home to 14 monks ... they own the whole town and employ about 90 people in various trades, businesses and the visitors centre. It is also home to European design and arts held in the various buildings.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't the best for our visit. Also, the famed New Norcia bakery with its wood-fired oven was closed ... the solo baker likes to take Mondays and Tuesdays off!