WA - The Great South (Esperance)

Gods' teeth, I love WA!

It is such a distinctive state and it just feels so good to be back here.

OK - personal bias declared, I should jot a few notes about the place.

We entered WA at the WA/SA Border Village and underwent the usual almost strip search by the quarantine people looking for fresh fruit and veggies (and honey and walnuts etc) as they seek to protect WA from the various nasties to be found elsewhere. 

No complaints from us. It was done courteously and it is a job worth doing so good on 'em.

As we left the Nullarbor behind we gradually saw an increase in the size of the trees along the road, but one thing that didn't vary was the fact that they were salmon gums. Now, I have declared a love of WA and these trees typify htat - they are beautiful with their smooth russet toned trunks and branches and their almost impossibly green foliage. Much greener than other gums, and the way that they sway in the breeze! Just so elegant and beautiful. There were whole forests of these trees and I loved seeing them.

We trundled on and stopped for our night's rest at a free campng area called Newman's Rocks. A lovely place to stop. The rocks are an exposed outcrop of (I think) granite and water collects in one of the hollows on the rock. This water is important for the wildlife and (to judge by the volume of cow shit around) for the cattle in the area. In times past the grazier has built a low wall to help contain the water and make it last longer as well as some low walls to guide water falling on the rock to add to the water in the hollow and not just run off the side.

These works are in some disrepair (see the photos) but are still an important bit of history.

We camped away from this water hole (and the flies feeding on all that shit) up in the woods where we met a Dutch couple who were doing the same thing. A very pleasant evening followed and we went to bed feeling happy and calmed by the peace of this beautiful place.

We left the rocks and headed off towards Norseman. The town was named afterthe horse that the original founder was riding . Apparently the horse kicked over a rock and the rider saw that it was a gold nugget and so a gold rush was born and the town created.

These days it is a dying little place. The mines have closed down as have half the shops. The sole supermarket was tatty and run down and the only real sign of life was in the group of indigenous people gathered outside the only pub in town, yelling and shouting their day away.

We won't be going back I reckon.

We left Norseman with a sense of relief and covered the 200 odd klms to Esperance fairly quickly. The forests of salmon gums eventually gave way to open grain paddocks, but the regular appearance of salt crsts in any low lying land gives the story of how saline these lands are becoming. Looks like a problem that won't go away.

But Esperance itself is a diamond although I think they have overdone the whole Douglas fir tree thing. They have planted a row of these trees along almost every street (sometimes on both sides) and while that may have been pretty when they first did it I have to say that now that a lot of these trees are seven or eight times as tall as most of the buildings and the trunks are up to 3 or 4 metres across, they just dwarf the town and look weird.

Looking weird is not what you'd say of the Cape Le Grand NP though. It is a beauty of a place although the absolute best bits are the beaches which are whiter than you'd believe and this leads to water that is bluer than you'd see outside of a TV commercial for a Bounty bar.

Lucky Bay is the main beach in this NP and you can see how gorgeous it is from the pics below. In person, it is even better. You can drive down the beach and the talcum powder fine sand is compacted hard under your wheels so driving down it holds no problems. It holds one surprise though - the beach has a caravan towed onto it each day and they sell some fine coffee (and  ice creams and snacks etc) from it. Strange isn't it? To get onto a beach in a remote national park and find someone selling coffee!

The picture below is of your first sight of Lucky Bay and you can see the coffee cart caravan parked on it.

Have you ever seen water so blue?

Yep - this is the Pajero parked on the beach. Had to be done eh? The sand is so firm you barely leave any tyre tracks.

The next beach we visited was Hellfire Bay. NFI where it gets the name from, but it is much closer to heaven than hell I can tell you!

Karen and I donned the togs and went for a swim here - cool water, but just stunning.

We visited the Le Grande beach and drove along it, and like all the others it is just a perfect experience.

Home to the van after that day, but there is so much more to explore around here!

The next day was a bit overcast (well, it is autumn down here) but we toddle off on the beaches loop to take a look around the eastern end of Esperance;s beaches as they loop around to the Pink Lake area.

What a difference a little sun makes! The place looks lovely still, but just not quite as close to perfection as it did yesterday.

Still - what do you think?

Some of the beaches have these stairs constructed to help you get down onto the sand.

Soon enough we left the beaches and drove inland to loop back towards town. This road took us past a salt lake known as the Pink Lake. The salt lake turns pink in the summer when the algae in it blooms, but this time of year it is just a white salt crust with some VERY salty water in places.

Esperance - a beautiful town, but we are off now to Bremer Bay to check out that place.