Day 64 Esperance

It’s been yet another full day on this epic and exciting journey of discovery for the five Dinters. We began the day with a skype call to Sydney during breakfast and then we headed into town for quick visit to the local markets. While at the markets, we noticed an old church and the music and voices wafting from inside, over the market visitors so when Jacob walked in to investigate, we all followed him. While inside the church, we took the opportunity to say a prayer of support to those close to us before again exploring the community markets. Jacqui picked up a hand full of jewels and the boys grabbed an ice-cream after which we headed out to Cape Le Grand National Park.
Lucky Bay Beach was the destination of choice as it’s been awarded The Whitest Beach in Australia. I’m not sure by whom, but who really cares? It was beautiful and the sand was a soft powdery white that hadn’t ever seen a corse shell fragment that might add an element of grit to the sands squeaky consistency. We stayed for an hour or so before completing our exploration of this most beautiful of National Parks.
Next was Thistle Bay and it was of equal beauty, with the added attraction of Whistle Rock on the peak and then it was on to Hellfire Bay. Along the way, we stopped to get a picture of a beautiful orange flower that is exclusive to this area of WA. It grows wild around the coast and looks a little like a wattle. By the time we left Hellfire Bay, we were a little beached out as each cove delivered another splendiferous view with equally fine and squeaky sand so by the time we reached Le Grand Beach, we’d decided that it must surely be the Le Grandest of them all and somewhat sadly, we didn’t even bother to get out of the car to check. Instead, we ramped the motor up to a Le Grand 60Km/h and roared along Le Grand beach for the next 22 kilometres.
Jacqui was very concerned as we had no certainty that the end of the beach would provide us an exit from the sand but I’d been reliably informed that a sealed road led from the other end of the beach, back to Esperance. Sure enough, we escaped the rapidly rising tide to make our exit onto a tar road which reduced our return drive from a relatively boring 56km, to an exciting, if somewhat tense, 22km.
Once back at Esperance, I dropped Jacqui and the boys at the van while I went in search of a car wash. I’ve never seen the car so filthy with caked on grime and salt changing it from a silver, to a dirty grey. It needs to go in for some work on the electricals and on the suspension, before we tackle the Nullarbor Plain. After cleaning up the outside, I then spent about 2 hours wiping down the inside to remove as much dirt and dust as I could.
Tomorrow will be another full day with Jacob’s birthday, a move from our current spot, to another spot within the same park, and the car being serviced. There’s never a dull moment.
Cheers,
Jorg