Esperance & Cape LeGrande 11/12 to 22/12

Esperance is reputed to have the prettiest beaches in Australia, and I must say this is an accurate description. They may not necessarily be the best swimming beaches but they certainly are very beautiful. This is the most easterly town on the south coast of W.A. and the main business centre is right on the shores of the very large Esperance Bay. Today this busy and attractive town relies quite heavily on its busy port, which is prominent in both exports and imports. Leaving the port in great quantities are iron ore, nickel, grain and woodchips. Imports are comprised mainly of fertilizer and sulphur (used in the processing of nickel). Because of the very strict and innovative handling procedures enforced by the proud locals, their town is unlike most other port towns. It is clean and sparkling without the usual covering of red dust found in other ports that handle iron ore and other minerals. The actual port area is quite small and the channels narrow and restricted; yet it handles some quite large ships. This is achieved by the use of two very special tugs, and even though they are not all that big they are, in fact, the most powerful and agile tugs in Australia. Once again we were quite fortunate to be in town over the weekend because on Saturdays and Sundays the local Apex club conducts tours around the port. There is no need to book you just wait by the port admin. Building at 1.20p.m. and for just $5 they put you on a bus for a 1½-hour tour with commentary by one of the club members. This is the only way you can get a close up look at the port facilities because the high level of security means there is no public access.

There is a Grand Ocean Drive around the western end of the bay and your first stop should be the lookout high on the hill just past the port. From the viewing platform there is a 360-degree view of the town, the bay and beaches and some of the more than 100 islands of the Recherche Archipelago. We made numerous stops along the drive to admire the beautiful beaches, all very attractive, but the most impressive would be Twilight Beach. The drive eventually takes you past the wind farm that provides a significant proportion of the district’s power needs. Esperance is not connected to the state grid and therefore relies on its own power station with generators that can run on natural gas or diesel. So the supplement that the wind farm supplies is most important.

After 3 days in town and still no mail, thanks to a postal strike in the busy lead up to Christmas (makes you question the sincerity of the unions) we decided to head out to the national park. For camping in the N.P. there are 2 choices, Lucky Bay or Le Grande Beach. It seems most people head to Lucky Bay where the beach has been voted the best and whitest in the country, but the camping area (for vans and trailers), although large, is open and bare. We chose Le Grande Beach where the campground is smaller and more intimate with individual sites surrounded by low coastal heath affording a bit of privacy. The sites are just a short stroll from the glistening white sand of the beach that stretches almost all the way back to Esperance. The water is sparkling clean and blue and we wasted no time in jumping in because the temperature had risen to 44 degrees, the hottest day we had encountered on our trip so far. Both campgrounds have flush loos and solar heated showers in modern brick buildings and there is plenty of beautiful fresh water pumped from a nearby spring.

We spent 8 fantastic days at Le Grande taking in the nearby sights with walks around the adjoining bays (Hellfire Bay, Thistle Cove, Lucky Bay and Rossiter Bay) and even conquered the challenging and strenuous climb to the summit of Frenchman Peak. During that time we travelled back into town (130Km round trip) for some essential supplies and to collect the mail that again had not arrived due to the aforementioned strike. Our original intention was to stay until after Xmas but that would have meant another return trip to town for the mail (we wanted it before Xmas) so once we were sure the mail was there we packed up, headed into town, collected the mail and the travelled north towards Kalgoorlie.

Albany to Esperance 2/12 to 13/12

Nestled around King George Sound and the surrounding inlets and bays, Albany is West Australia’s busiest tourist town. There are all the usual shopping opportunities and we took the time to stock up as well as have the car serviced. Today the port is quite busy with grain and woodchips being two of the prominent commodities passing through. In times past one the major maritime activities was whaling and Albany was the last shore-based operation in Australia, only ceasing processing in the 1970s. A visit to the award winning Whale World is a definite must do and if, like us, you are fortunate enough to have a tour guide who actually lived and grew up at the station, all the gruesome details of it’s existence will be revealed. There are a number of coastal drives and walks around the bays and harbour all revealing wonderful views of the spectacular scenery and well worth the effort. We would strongly recommend a visit to the war memorial on top of the main hill overlooking the town. Albany has a particularly special place in our wartime history, as it was the place of embarkation for most of our troops heading off to the battlefields of WWI, and for many, the last piece of Australia they saw. It is also the first place ever in Australia to hold a dawn service on Anzac Day. Another interesting thing to do is visit the wind farm, where there are viewing platforms, and walks that take you right up to the towers of the massive turbines. Along the way you can stop off at a number places to view the rugged coastal rock formations, with the blowhole and the gap being most impressive. We also visited the Mount Romance sandalwood factory to learn about the process and to purchase some of their excellent products at factory prices. Being the fortunate types we are, our time in town coincided with the annual Christmas pageant and we certainly enjoyed sitting in the gutter of the main street with hundreds of locals as we watched the parade of decorated floats and community marching groups pass by. The evening’s celebrations culminated in the switching on of the lights on the enormous Christmas tree in the town park.

On the way to Esperance we stopped off in Bremmer Bay for one night and it was certainly worth the detour. Like much of the southern coast of W.A. the scenery surrounding this quiet little town is just fantastic. After passing through Ravensthorpe we spent the next night at the small highway town of Munglinup before taking the dusty unsealed road out to Quagi Beach. There are less than a dozen private individual campsites nestled into the coastal Banksia heath and with plenty of fresh water, a composting loo and outside cold showers for just a couple of dollars a night it was a great place to relax for three nights. The Banksias and Mallee type eucalypts were all in flower attracting a myriad of nectar eating birds that buzzed and chirped around our campsite all day long – very pleasant indeed. We enjoyed rock hopping around the point and swimming at the sandy beach right in front of the camping area. A long walk in the sand to the southeast led us to discover the remains of an ancient petrified forest slowly being eroded by the pounding waves of the southern ocean. It was hard to tear ourselves away but we needed to travel the 70 or so Km into Esperance to re-provision and collect some mail.