Week 3 Esperance
What is the difference between unwinding and unravelling? I thought about this walking up from the beach to camp at Yokinup Bay, east of Esperance. We generally associate unwinding with relaxing, with holidays, whereas unravelling, in my mind, suggests a falling apart, coming unstuck or losing control. But in the true sense, I think I’m doing both. We are in the third week of our journey and the pace seems to be slowing, now that we are firmly in the west. We are starting to relax, unravelling all the threads that have tied us to our busy lives.
I have taken to turning off my Apple Watch or using it simply as a watch rather than a measurement device: closing rings or counting heart beats or how many steps. We don’t have to count much these days (apart from our dollars).
After the Kalgoorlie Super Pit tour and a quick visit to Coles, we beelined it to the coast. Next stop: the white beaches around Esperance.
We camped at three spots down here for the week:
Cape Arid NP’s Belinup campground at Thomas River (2 nights)
Lucky Bay campground at Cape Le Grande (2 nights)
Duke of Orleans Bay caravan park (3 nights)
The combination of granite hills and headlands that roll into the ocean with the pure white sand and turquoise water made our stay at every place incredible. The list of beaches worth visiting is lengthy and we managed to tick a few off the list: Hellfire Bay, Dolphin Cove, Wharton Beach, Victoria Harbour were among the favourites.
While social media is obviously good for business, the locals aren’t so pleased with the influx of out-of-towners. Tom from Esperance told us they hate Facebook for this reason and fair enough. One afternoon as Jeremy and I were sitting on the headland overlooking Wharton beach, I counted 50 4WDs on the beach, lined up like sardines.
Another man told us that every year he and his master’s footy team bring their families to Wharton beach from Kalgoorlie for the WA Labour Day long weekend. This year there were only 43 of them and he told us that it’s ‘all for the kids’. While he is technically not a local who lives at Esperance or someone from the region, he shared the same feelings as Tom.
There is some awesome bushwalking here. We walked up Frenchman Peak and a short distance of the lengthy Tagon Coastal Trail around Lucky Bay.
Perhaps the most striking feature of this place for me (apart from the white sand and turquoise waters) is the enormous granite rock faces that seem to drive down into the sea. The waves slide over them, pushing and pulling, ocean expanding and contracting, like lungs. The constant movement of water over rock is energising. It made me want to shout or sing or flap my arms and somehow join in. While TC Alfred is building over east, the same powerful ocean is evident here.
There are also beautiful veins of colour and shape running through the rock: grey and pink, white and silver, their own landscapes. Also the lichen of orange, sunflower yellow and black. Such a glorious colour palette.
I solved the question of the bees here, too, as signs at the start of lots of walks warn about feral bees. I assume the Fowlers Bay bees belong to this category.
Naturally we are eating well, including beef brisket, delicious veggie pasta, tortillas with chilli con carne and salad, penne bolognese, chicken red curry.
There is more to tell about the region. I’m loving the bird and plant life, but in an attempt to keep the post short-ish, I will only mention the beautiful banksia and New Holland honeyeater, prolific around Lucky Bay. More later.
Heading west on our way out of Esperance at the end of the week on another 40 degree day, we travelled the phenomenal Great Ocean Drive, past Twilight Beach and a few more astounding granite headlands. We stopped in at Eleven Mile Lagoon for a quick farewell snorkle. Thank you Esperance!
