Friday, Day 48 - Feb 23 - 8am to 6pm, Tender, Esperance, Western Australia, Australia

Esperance is nature lover’s dream boasting spectacular scenery including the bush land and beaches uninhabited islets, granite headlands, and the bubble gum-hued Pink Lake. Esperance is located in the center of some of Australia’s most beautiful sights with some of the country’s most stunning coastline and best surf and great fishing options. The town its self is very nice and they have done a good job showcasing their past and making it tourist friendly
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This is a new port for us. We spent three days in Albany several 100 miles the west of Esperance in 2009. The coast there was beautiful so are looking forward to exploring it today. There is an Avis car rental agency in town and some interesting sounding things that can be done on our own so we pass on the free bus tour and rent a small car for the day at $69AU with 100 free km.

Unfortunately at first it looks like the day is going to be a bust with fog and light rain, But we go for it anyway, hoping for the best. The tender is docking at a pier on the Esplanade which has a very nice water front walk and park all along the city’s foreshore. As independents we have to have a tender ticket if we want to leave with the tours, but we pass and go to breakfast instead.

There is a lady from the tourist office on board and Carolyn talks to her. We were scheduled to pick up the car at 9AM, but there is no way we can get there before about 10 since the tender ride is about 20minutes and then we have a short walk to the office. The lady calls the office and tells them we will be there around 10 and confirms that is OK.

We have a good breakfast, gather our stuff and head off the ship. It is about a block’s walk to Avis. There are two other couples renting a car to share ahead of us. We get our car with out a problem and are on our way about 10:20. As we pull out the sun comes out!!!! Glory be, a blue bird day after all!

Our plan is to drive a 40KM loop along the Great Ocean Drive to the west of town and then see how our time is. We have to have the car back at 5 and the last tender is 5:30. The road is great and there is no traffic. This part of the shore was discovered by the French in 1792 while sheltering from a storm. There are nine overlooks with names like Blue Haven, Observatory Point, a finger of land with beaches on both sides where the French actually came ashore, Twilight Beach, Nine Mile Beach and so on, along this route. All have access to the beach, but most are down steep stairs. The coast line is stunning! It is even more beautiful than the Great Ocean Road out side of Melbourne! So for about 25km we stop at all the overlooks and take pictures of the beautiful water in all shades of turquoise to deep sapphire blue bounded by a beautiful blue sky and white sand beaches and dunes edged by rugged limestone cliffs. 

Instead of doing the rest of the loop back to town through the county side we return along the coast and see the shore from the other direction....beautiful.

We are back in town around noon and decide we have time to drive to the other major attraction in the area, the Cape Grand National Park about 73km to the East. We see that there are picnic areas in the Park so we happen on a Subway and get a foot long (a little taste of home is nice every so often) for our picnic. It is a nice scenic 45 minute drive to Cape Le Grand National Park, one of the most well-known and fiercely protected natural areas in Western Australia. The terrain is absolutely breathtaking in every direction. Massive granite boulders rise from the coastal plain, which is covered with rolling heathland. The beaches are wide, sugar-white and secluded and at times dotted with grey kangaroos, lounging on the beach. They typically travel in groups called mobs or troops, but we miss them. People said they had been on the beach earlier. We do see one hop across the highway in front of us. It nearly becomes road kill by the car coming the other way.

At Cape, we go first to Lucky Bay, a beautiful half moon shaped bay with the most beautiful beach named in 1802 by the Frenchman, Flinders. We stop here for a while and have our picnic and enjoy the scenery. There is a campground near the beach which is filling up for the weekend and there are a number of people already enjoying the beach.

We then drive by Helfire Bay on the way to Le Grande Beach. Here the road goes out on to the beach. Dick drives onto the sand to the waters edge where Carolyn gets out and has her wade in the water. Yes, it is cold, straight from Antarctica! This beach is more deserted, no swimmers and only a couple of fishermen. Alas it is time to head back to town. Don’t want to miss the tender.

Back in town we stop at Mermaid Leather, a company that takes the waste fish skins from the fishing industry in the area and tans them, making a beautiful leather that they then sell to the clothing industry to make shoes, belts, purses and house hold items. We are shown the process and get to handle the finished product. The end product is very nice and the different fish skins have different textures. It is all a hand done process so of course the leather is not cheap!

After a trip to the gas station we turn the car in. We drove $21AU in extra kms, but well worth it. The bay has become very rough so we have a bouncy tender ride back to the ship. We learn that the wind got so strong mid day that tendering was halted and the Captain is now using the engines to hold station as the anchors were dragging and were pulled.

We go up to Galileo for cocktails so we can watch sail a way. Our Australian friends join us. They rented a car also. We have a good time comparing notes on our day and wind up in Sette Mari together for a late dinner. This has definitely been the best day so far!