Esperance and the Capes

Posted by efloow on December 13, 2015 in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

December 5-13

 

Imagine the turquoise crystal clear waters of the Southern Ocean lapping onto the whitest, finest sand beaches you have ever seen. Set this against a backdrop of a rugged coastline of bays, granite cliffs and headlands with massive expanses of lush coastal bush heading inland. Add the occasional granite mountain peak, a spattering of islands, remove most signs of habitation and you get some idea of the magnificence of the south coast of Western Australia.

 

 

We rejoined it in Hopetoun, a tiny seaside town that abuts the Fitzgerald NP. We spent a rather wet day exploring the nooks and crannies of the park, but after two sleepless nights due to torrential rain and thunderstorms we bailed out to a motel in Esperance!

 

We really enjoyed our time in Esperance and it wasn't just because it was the first time we saw the sun in a while! The town has a laid back feel with lots of cafes and great coffee, sadly still enjoyed! The waterfront overlooks the Bay of Isles and has various sized islands and granite outcrops peppered through the turquoise waters. The foreshore is cleverly designed and maintained with excellent walk and cycle ways, interesting sculptures, old pictures, and numerous play areas for the kids. Even the industrial part of the town seems to frame the scene, with the striking old wood pile jetty on one side and the modern iron ore and wood-chip exporting facility on the other side.

 

 

 

The Esperance museum is full of well preserved bric-a-brac, ranging from washing machines, to typewriters, to trains and cars from the last hundred years. I suspect the kids thought we were mad going “I used to use this” at every turn! It also contained many bits from Skylab, the first manned space station, that spectacularly crashed to earth around Esperance in 1979.

 

 

The immediate coast around Esperance is amazing. At Twilight beach, another one of the “beaches of the year” this time from 2006, we finally made it back into the water and got Alex back on his surf board and Holly on her boogie board. We spent another day a little further east of Esperance, playing on the beaches of another incredible National Park, Cape Le Grande.

 

 

 

After Esperance we moved even further east and camped in the National Park at Cape Arid for more surfing and some fishing where we actually caught fish! There were the same stunning vistas and beaches, but it felt really remote and we saw little if any signs of civilisation. The isolation was added to by the evidence of the recent bush fires that had ravaged the region only a few weeks earlier. Vast swaths of land looked like something from Armageddon… areas scorched black all the way to the tops of the trees, and all the ground cover incinerated. It is easy to understand the loss of life and property that accompanied these fires.

 

 

For some reason the background to the place names around the southwest has entered our consciousness. It would be easy to say that we have spent too long on the road, but I suspect the fact that every second place name ends in 'up' finally registered. There are the usual places named after original pioneers, like Pemberton, Hyden or Margaret River (after Margaret Whicher, the cousin of John Garrett Bussell of Busselton fame). Then there are the places named after the explorers, like Esperance (the first French boat to sail this coast) or Recherche Archipelago (the ship accompanying the Esperance), or D'Entrecasteau NP (after the Captain of the Esperance). Then there are the obvious names like Cape Le Grande, and Cape Arride (later anglicised by Mathew Flinders to Arid) and Discovery Bay. Finally there are the up's…..these are the most striking, most numerous, and the most difficult to say! They originate from the aboriginal language where 'up' means place of, and include Ongerup (place of the kangaroo), Boyanup (place of quartz), Manjimup, and Cowaramup (place of the purple crown lorikeets).

 

 

Next we head back inland to the deserts and the “place of the silky pears”, more commonly know as Kalgoorlie!