White sand, turquoise waters, granite peaks - Cape Le Grand

Had a massive drive to Esperance and arrived quite late.  Turned again to tripadvisor to check out the caravan parks and aimed for the preferred.  Not exactly taken by this one on a drive-by, we rejected common wisdom and went to the one that got crap reviews.  Oh, so well deserved it turns out.  We were delighted to discover that our site for the night in this very big capacity park was immediately opposite the toilet block. Yay.  Being late (and not keen on eating alfresco) we decided to eat out and found our way into the very quiet town.  It is probably lucky that a big cruise ship had just docked, so there were some places open for dinner.  Kel drove back insisting she was not affected by her rather large cider, then nearly chopped her arm off at the boom gate by closing the window on herself by accident.

We were delighted to leave the joint the next day and head out to the beautifully named Cape Le Grande National Park.  Did we mention it is windy still?  Seems there is no escape from an ever-present gale.  Drove out through huge, low lying yellow fields interrupted with swamps and timber plantations.  Saw the fattest black Angus cattle we have ever seen and we weren't the only ones to think so - some other tourists pulled off the road to take photos of them.  On one particular crest, we were surprised to see a bizzare re-creation of Stonehenge.  Why Stonehenge? why here? No idea, but the vacant car park and the blockade around the fence made us wonder how many people would pay money to see that.

The park is covered in low shrubs, all in bloom.  It was lovely to see the wildflowers, along with many outcrops of granite, hills and valleys.  But then we arrived at Le Grande Beach.

We thought we had seen some pretty amazing blue waters at Broome, and then again at Monkey Mia and Exmouth.  But truly, Esperance takes the prize.  The sand is white, the waters are shallow and the most luminous turquoise you can imagine - like the bright blue that kids might paint the ocean. 

We were a bit disappointed to be turned away from the full campsite here, but high-tailed it over to the other larger one at Lucky Bay with an equally lovely beach.  Found ourselves a nice spot and got comfy.

Went straight to the beach to have a look.  Right where the entrances to the beach are, we discovered that the sand was completely covered in seaweed.  This was no ordinary seaweed though, it was like standing on a carpet of shredded paper 50cm thick.  At places the layer was thinner and the water soaked up through, thongs disappeared and it felt like walking on quicksand.  It reminded Kel of the living island in Life of Pi.  The kids were horrified and a little panicked!  After extracting our footwear from the stinky mess, Kel and kids retreated to the campsite for some water pistol maths.  Rich soldiered on past the seaweed to reach the white sand and fly the stunt kite.

Spent the next few days hanging out at the campsite, visiting various beaches and chatting to neighbours.  The wind was intense and the only day it wasn't windy, it was raining!  We did enjoy ourselves anyway, soaking up the beautiful scenery and being visited daily by wallabies.

One of the days we set ourselves the challenge of climbing Frenchman's Peak.  At around 300m high, the walk was 1000m up the smooth and steep granite surface.

A couple of times we thought we might lose the kids over the edge with the wind!

We all made it safely up to the rock arch and back, which was exhilarating. Rich summoned his courage and walked up to the very top, on top of the rock arch - battling his vertigo with every step.

We headed back down the mountain and made it back to the car safely. We all really enjoyed our conquering of Frenchman's Peak.

Another day we discovered the mis-named Hellfire Bay.  A beautiful little cove, complete with white sandy beaches and dramatic rocky headland, it looked more like paradise to us.  We wondered if it was named by athiests, then discovered that apparently it has something to do with lightning flashes above a ship's mast.  Finally finding some respite from the wind, we spent a few hours playing here in the sand, climbing rocks and spotting turtles.  It was so lovely, we returned another evening for a beachside BBQ.

We also visited Thistle Cove (gees, nothing like inviting names around here) which was equally nice (almost a carbon copy in fact) and had some interesting 'whilstling' rocks.

We can't forget to mention our very lovely camp host, an ex-Englisher with Aussie kids named Chris.  We so enjoyed his daily greetings and chats and his games with the kids that, as a family, we together considered the idea of kidnapping him so he could host the rest of our journey :)  The kids made a special effort to say goodbye and give high-fives on leaving.

When the time had come to go, we left the picturesque park behind, stocking up at Esperance and getting photos with tanks before turning north in the general direction of the famous and feared Nullabor Plain.