Day 15

Past the half-way point in our trip now!

We had checked the weather report for Esperance yesterday while it was raining (there was phone reception on the beach, but not at the tent 40m away).  The weather report for today was supposed to be sunny and boy did Cape Le Grand turn it on!  I thought about gambling with wearing shorts but played it safe with 3/4 length pants.  My bet on shorts would have paid off because it turned into a brilliant 25 degree sunny day.

The plan today was to drive back to Esperance via the beach, but the high tide around midday meant that we should have been attempting it later in the afternoon, so we left the tent set up to dry and went around the same points of interest that we saw yesterday that really needed better weather conditions to get the most out of.

First stop was Frenchman's Peak.  Glad we chose to do this 1.5hr return walk in the morning because it was getting pretty warm up there on the rock face.  Oddly, the walking trail starts off the climb by walking down the hill then back up to the peak's North East face.  The trail leads to the rock face, which goes straight up at about a 30-40 degree incline.  Climbing up the rock, no ropes or anything, I looked back and thought "If I trip, I'm not stopping until I hit the bottom".  Then I recalled the warning sign at the start of the trail stating "Danger: Bee Risk Area". Riiiight, way to set your priorities.  Turns out there was a sign at the start mentioning the rock face and dangers around it, but there was no highlight symbol specifically for it - just a plain brown/grey national parks sign.

The views from Frenchman's Peak were magnificent and the extensive rock formations were all very interesting to discover and explore. 

We made it back down unscathed and feeling like we had accomplished something. Next spot to visit was Hellfire Bay.  The previous day the Camp Host suggested that this was the place to fish, but by now my bait was past the defrosting stage and had started decomposing so I had to discard it.  When we arrived we saw how fantastic a clear blue sky can actually make this place look.  I would have much preferred fishing off this beach with it's steep gradient and lack of seaweed.  Morgs and I walked it's entire length, noting some of the smaller things like the caterpillars that were walking along the sand towards the incoming surf, then getting pushed back again by the waves.

Next we went back to Lucky Bay to take the panorama photos of the bays.  The view was stunning.  Turquoise blue sea, white sand, blue sky, reddish-brown rocks.  If this beach were further north and on the eastern sea board the place would be covered in tourists.  The photo describes it best.

We had lunch at Lucky Bay, giggling to ourselves at a car load of Asian guys who got out of the car, sun screened themselves, went off and got changed, came back to their car and sun screened themselves again, then took a dip in the water.  I was expecting them to be back in 5 minutes to put more sunscreen on. 

I also helped out another guy by jump-starting his car.  Lucky for him we brought those jumper cables.  He was a local who arrived in the park at 7am and went out fishing for the morning with his mates and accidentally left his lights on.  They had a large esky with about half a dozen huge pink fish about 1m long.  They had done well for half a morning's worth of recreation!

By now it was well over time for us to collect our tent.  We packed up and left for Esperance about 1pm - almost an hour after high tide.

The beach was nice and hard at first, then after about half an hour the sea weed banked up on the harder sand and the only tracks were in the soft stuff.  Time to lower the pressures and persist.  A couple of times we even had to put it in low range.

As we got closer to Esperance there were more and more vehicles that we were passing by; many had parked themselves just below the dunes and had the kids and dog running around, mum and dad on the camping chairs, probably a BBQ or two and the odd marquee tent for shade.  What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon when it's sunny and 27 degrees!  Lucky buggers.

There were a few bogans getting themselves bogged in the dunes as well.

We were back in Esperance by about 3:30pm and needed to do more shopping and wash a heap of clothes, so we decided to grab a cabin at the same caravan park that we stayed at earlier in the week.

By now I had some time, and internet reception, to really sort out what was going on with Blogger and figure out why the posts weren't being published.  I think it was due to the number of posts being displayed on the main page, which exceeded the size limit.  Reducing the number of posts on the main page to two seems to have helped.

Next phase of the trip is basically to follow the highway around the coast from Esperance to Albany, Denmark, Augusta, Bunbury and up to Perth.  There are not too many "must do" activities we have, but I'm keen to explore Fitzgerald River NP, and maybe some parts of D'Entrecasteaux NP.