Esperance – Cape Le Grand National Park

From Albany, Bel and I headed to Esperance. Our aim was to stay at Cape le Grande National Park, just out of Esperance, so we rang ahead and found out that it was full and only worked on first in first serve basis – no booking! The ranger suggested we stay in Esperance the night and arrive before 8am the next day, so we stayed in a motel and checked out the town. 

Another port town with a beautiful coastline like Albany. The port was huge and I guess services all of the grain and cattle farms in the region. The town also serves as the local beach for Kalgoorlie – 400kms away!

Bel and I walked into town and bought supplies for the next 5 days in the national park. Once we dropped this back we headed to the local pub for dinner and had Pizza – something we had been craving for quite a while. Awesome👍. 

We were up early, and as planned arrived at the Rangers gate by 7.30. We saw a few people on their way out of the park so were hopeful, and fortunately a couple of spots were available. 

The whole park is spectacular. Beautiful white sandy beaches, with crystal clear water turning from white, to light blue, to azure as the water deepens. The cape is made up of a series of bays so they are all very protected and the swell very small making it great for swimming. 

There are only 15 campsites and they are quite private, so it really was like being in a private oasis. You can see the top of our tent on the right in the photo above. 

We spent the day relaxing and swimming (although water was a bit cold and it was only 20 with a breeze). In the evening we headed down to the beach to watch the sunset over the ocean. Such a beautiful sight. 

   
   
The next day we went for a bike ride along the beach. The sand is very fine and compact making it easy to ride on. Cars are also allowed. 

   
 
After lunch we headed out for a tour of the park and most importantly lucky bay. Lucky Bay is said to have the whitest sand in Australia, and is beautiful. 

   
    
 
It’s a great spot and also has a camp ground that is closed at present for development; they are doubling capacity to 80 sites. We checked them out and the sites are a lot more exposed than Cape Le Grand and would still be our second choice if we came back. 

The big advantage it has is that there’s a coffee shop “Lucky Bean” run by a local aboriginal on the beach. We couldn’t resist and bought an ice cream while enjoying the view. 

  
From there we visited Hellfire Bay and a few others (can’t remember names). All similarly beautiful, white sands and pristine blue waters surrounded by granite hills. 

   
    
    
 
We also visited Frenchmans Peak. There is a path to the top but we decided to give it a miss this time. 

On our final day the weather had warmed up to about 28 and the wind had dropped, so we spent the day on the beach swimming and paddling. 

   
   
We had great time paddling through the small waves until we got a little too confident and had a try at surfing them in. Two attempts and two dunkings later we decided that was enough and we better discuss our technique. So we set up under our umbrella and opened a bottle of sparkling to celebrate, as the end of the first stage of our adventure was coming to a close; we were heading home tomorrow. 

That evening we packed up in preparation for an early get away. We have had an amazing time is South West Australia but it was time to do the 3700km drive home for Xmas with the family. Can’t wait to see them.