Esperance and Cape Le Grand

Back down south again after Wave Rock. To the incredible beaches of Esperance. We had heard they were good but I don't think we realised just HOW good. It's the colour of the water and the brilliant white sand that contributes to this, not to mention the unspoilt setting. Although it is not yet really beach and swimming weather in south WA, Cem and I could not resist swimming in this water.

There is a 40km Great Ocean Drive around the coastline west of Esperance. One of the beaches, Twilight Beach was voted Australias Best Beach (in 2006). This is it:

At lunchtime we kicked back:

One beautiful beach after another, although quite a few of them were also a bit rocky.

Esperance is also a very windy place and uses this to advantage to produce clean electricity with its wind farms. It needs to produce its own because of its remoteness to any other major towns.

We had two nights out at Cape Le Grand National Park 65km east of Esperance. Now this is a place we want to come back to in summer. Didn't stop us from swimming though, it helped that this NP happened to have solar powered HOT showers for that quick dash after the swim. We camped and swam at Lucky Bay, the colour and clarity of the water was exhilarating.

and were able to a great walk from Lucky Bay to Thistle Cove. We also climbed Frenchmans Peak, an excellent climb with good 360degree views of the park.

In Esperance we also had the 30 000km service on the car carried out, bit more interesting than having it done at Pennant Hills Mitsubishi. It was easy and pleasant to wander around Esperance for the afternoon. The whale tale sculpture had just been opened and unveiled on 8 June, the day we started our trip. A mixture of beautiful timber, steel and glass tiles.