Esperance

Saturday 12 to Tuesday 15 February

We packed up the ute early on Saturday and headed into the Farmers Markets at Albany, they had heaps of nice organic produce so we collected a heap of veggies, including some heirloom carrots, for the nights planned stir fry. On our way out of town we stopped via Camping World, who were having a sale. We looked at sleeping bags but Kitty settled for a self inflating travel pillow...you could spend so much money in that store!

The drive to Esperance was uneventful, taking the scenic route via the Stirling Ranges. We arrived at the caravan park and proceeded to squeeze into our campsite. We were surrounded on both sides by sites with multiple tents and cars, then the trucks came. The park is located adjacent to the port road so all afternoon (and night, so it turns out) we had trucks hitting the compression brakes, diesel locos and trucks accelerating away from the port. Not 100% happy with this we walked to the beach to chill out, picking up some beer and Maccas for dinner on the way back. (So it's close to everything!)

A tanker at the port

Sunday morning we had a sleep in before driving to Cape Le Grand National Park, first stop, Le Grand Beach. The weather forecast was indeed correct (for once on our trip) and we had beautiful clear skies, with a very strong Easterly. This didn't stop this magic beach looking amazing, the water was crystal clear and with the very white fine sand looked spectacular. As this was the start of the day, with walks planned, Lawrie resisted the urge to swim.

Kitty at Le Grand Beach

We headed back to Frenchmans Peak, had Subway for lunch & discussed the climb up, specifically whether it was "windy" or not (climbing when windy not advised). We started the climb up the eastern face but about 3/4 the way up the wind really picked up, gusting to 40+ kts and making the climb very difficult as you were pushed sideways & forwards on a steep rock slope. We took shelter behind a shrub, watched other people descend (one guy sounded like he was parachuting, his jacket was blown about so violently) and headed back down ourselves.

Frenchmans Peak

View from 3/4 the way up.

After that exciting experience we stopped off at Thistle Cove, a very beautiful beach with a 1.5km walk to Lucky Bay (apparently the whitest beach in Australia) to the east. This walk took in some great views but we were continually punching head long into 20-30kt winds so it wasn't the most fun! We walked along the beach at Lucky Bay, dodging squishy seaweed clumps (not shown in any of the tourist photos!) before turning back as sand was getting everywhere!

Whistling Rock looking across Thistle Cove

The beach at Thistle Cove

View from the walk to Lucky Bay

Islands off the coast

Kitty walking into the headwind

Cairn and the islands

One of the rock formations along the walk

Lucky Bay

Once back at Thistle Cove Lawrie got his swim, the water was very cool but refreshing and nice after the walks.

Monday morning was spent planning the return journey to Brisbane, organising hotels and discussing whether a track marked as "4WD only" would really be the best option, even if it did save us a few hundred kilometres. We jumped on our bikes and headed around town, firstly stopping at Tanker Jetty, to see the resident sea lion, Sammy. We had a bite to eat at a local cafe, picked up some red bulls in preparation for Tuesdays early start then started our ride to Twilight Beach, around 7km away.

Looking back to port, tanker docked.

Tanker Jetty

Sammy the sea lion

 The ride started with a big climb up Dempster Head, past West Beach, Fourth Beach then finally to Twilight Beach, where we stopped for a soft serve and water. Great beaches and views!

A view from the ride

The beaches over here are very beautiful

Rocks located out from Twilight Beach

Lawrie heading offroad along a headland

 We arrived back at camp very tired from the riding and relaxed by reading books and surfing the net. With an early start and 900km drive to the WA border planned for Tuesday, we should really make a start packing up... This is the last camping night of our Australia trip. It'll be nice to sleep in a real bed for a while but we'll miss Tenty - she's been pretty good to us.