6^th – 8^th January 2017 Esperance

We stayed three nights in Esperance and managed to see many of the attractions. Esperance is in the western region of the “Recherche Archipelago”, also known as the Bay of Isles. 

Esperance  and the Archipelago 

The numerous small uninhabited islands off the Esperance coast add to its beauty in the evening sunsets.

Twilight Beach

From our day of arrival the temperature dropped from 45C down to mid-20Cs, quite a change and largely due to a change in wind direction from the northern interior to the WSW.

If there was a chance to go windsurfing then the first morning was my only one since the wind was up to 18 knots and dropping over the next few days. The wind direction was the main problem since it had too much of a westerly in it. Nevertheless, we had an early breakfast and headed out east along the Twilight Beach Road. There are a number of beaches going east, West Beach, Fourth Beach, Twilight Beach, Nine Mile Beach, Ten Mile Lagoon and Eleven Mile Beach. Unfortunately the first three beaches as well as the Esperance main beach all face too SE since they get shadowed by the land. The ones with the best directions are the last three. However, they have a slab reef all along the beach without any obvious gap, which would make it difficult to get back in, never mind launching.  With no other windsurfer in sight I decided to skip the idea and continue around the Great Ocean Drive, a 40 km circular trip. 

At Observation Point between the Twilight and Nine Mile Beaches we spotted 3 dolphins circulating the rocks on the sheltered side, quite an early morning treat.  Further around from the coast we came across the Pink Lake, a large expanse of inland water that looked largely white but with a tinge of pink. The colour is attributed to high concentrations of salt tolerant algae, Dunalella Sailina.

Great Ocean Drive

As windsurfing was not possible we decided to try our luck at golf at the Esperance Golf Club. We were greeted by a young Irish lad on his last day at the club before he moves to the Royal Perth as general manager.  The course had lots of salt lakes to avoid, but no kangaroos this time. It wasn't until we finished that we discovered that one can take relief for a poor ball lie up to 1 metre. In the UK the winter rules allow only 6 inches - showing how much the terrain gets hammered in the Australian summers. 

Sheila at Esperance Golf Course

We took a trip east along the coastline but before arriving at the coast we came across the Oz version of Stonehenge, which had been erected by a local farmer. This was a complete life size version aligned to the summer solstice in Esperance with an appropriate lay-line  of stones.

The Magic of Stonehenge

From the Stonehenge replica we headed out to Lucky Bay within the Cape Arid National Park. This was just one of a number of scenic bays along the coast and fortunately accessed via a sealed road. Others included Hellfire Bay, Thistle Cove and Arid Bay, all protected from any westerly and south westerly winds. 

Lucky Bay

On route we spotted a couple of lizards slowly waddling across the road in their awkward fashion.

Lizard

Esperance has a museum, which like many of its type are filled with artifacts from the late 1800s to the 1950s. One unique addition was a fuel tank from NASA’s Spacelab that fell to Earth in 1979 along a NE-SW track aligned with Esperance.

While in Esperance we had three evening meals: the Season’s Restaurant, Eljay’s Restaurant and The Pier Hotel all quite acceptable and the last quite surprisingly good. The one we failed to try was the Loose Goose, which has a good reputation.