Esperance - inspirational!

Esperance – what a coastline! We did the drive around the coast road this morning, stopping at nearly every lookout and viewing spot and it truly is an amazing sight. The Southern Ocean is so blue and so wild. There are a lot of rocks also, some that are long and flat looking like a shelf or table and others that are rounded but no sign of really jagged rocks. However, I would hate to try to swim to shore if I fell in from one of the rock platforms. The sea is very powerful and constantly moving here and although it looks beautiful, would be treacherous in some places. The drive along the coast road is well worth doing and doesn’t take long unless you stop for too long at each lookout; I wasn’t allowed to so we only took a couple of hours to make the drive completely around, past the pink lake (which is not pink at this time of year unfortunately) and back into Esperance. We went to the bakery and got something for lunch then went down to the shelter near Esperance Bay to eat it. It was a sunny but windy day which kept the temperature down enough to warrant keeping our jumpers on. Talking to some kids on the little swimming pier nearby, we discovered it is always windy in Esperance. Next to this little pier was a floating pontoon with a ladder and slide thing on it for kids to play on when swimming but the weather was too cold for that today except for a teenage boy that we had been talking to who went in just to show everyone that he could I think.
After we’d had lunch and had a look around we headed to Cape Le Grand National Park where some of the most photographed beaches including Lucky Bay are found and is about 50 km east of Esperance. Along the way, Fin suddenly braked and pulled over and, on asking what he’d stopped for; found that he’d seen some emus that he thought I’d like to take a photo of. He turned around to show me what he’d seen and I was amazed to see a group of maybe six or more emus in a clearing between some trees. Unfortunately all but one of them moved into the shelter of the trees so I didn’t get the photo but we decided to try again on the way back if they were still there which they were. I was stunned when I counted the number in the photo and found that it was actually ten and this time they did not spook and hide like last time, obviously. Maybe old man Emu told them that we were not a threat after last time. You see from the photos I worked out that the one that remained the first time was bigger and paler in colour than the rest and is probably the mob leader. I don’t know much about Emu behaviour but I suspect he is the protector of a mob of female and young.
At the gates to Cape Le Grand, we were surprised to find a self-registration set up if there is no one in the gate house so that is what we did. It relies on trust; you are meant to fill out the form then put your $10 in an envelope which is posted into a locked box and display the form on your dashboard. Different, unusual....
Lucky Bay itself as you can see from the photos is gorgeous; the sand is so white and amazingly hard. You can see where a four wheel drive drove over it but really didn’t make much of an impression in the sand at all. The sound of the waves crashing to shore is most dramatic from up on the higher land around it so I guess it echoes on the rocks nearby. The sea is as before a clear blue that is lighter close to shore then becomes quite dark as it gets deeper. Again, I imagine there could be a strong current out there to be careful of. There is a campsite just nearby with an amenities block for campers and there were maybe half a dozen campers there. We entered the beach from the campsite path and came immediately upon a mass of seaweed; some as deep as 30 – 40 cm! We had to walk across it for quite a while avoiding the parts that were deceptively very wet underneath if possible. Finally, we got past all that onto the hard, white sand which crunched under our feet but was really easy to walk on compared to most sandy beaches. We walked a fair way around, just enjoying the view and sound of the waves then headed back to the car, checking out Flinders Memorial on the way which commemorates Matthew Flinders sheltering in Lucky Bay when he circumnavigated Australia. We are doing that too; circumnavigating Australia but I think we are doing it a lot easier than Flinders would have, don’t you?
I tried to upload the BLOG post and photos again tonight but although it stayed connected for longer than last night when it only lasted about 8-10 minutes on dial-up, I couldn’t get anything published on Blogger. We think it is the age of the phone lines in the motel that has done renovations and put phones with extra data points but no doubt has not gone as far as rewiring the phone lines. Traveller beware! We made sure we booked motel rooms with phones knowing we could use dial-up since our Vodafone is completely unusable now and got caught out on this one. Our current motel in Kalgoorlie-Boulder is far more modern and has a 24 hour fast ADSL internet kiosk in the foyer as well as data points in the rooms. The dial-up seems to work fine here. Hooray! Two nights here then back to Perth for four before we get on the train.