It was up bright and early today because we had a dig day planned. First stop the visitor’s centre to get a map of how to get there. Cape Le Grand National Park was the destination and we set off safe in the knowledge that we had our WA National Parks pass to get us in and as we drove in I hung it over the rear view mirror and noticed it had expired five days ago. The plan then became to plead ignorance to the Ranger, if there was one, and hope that we could scrape together $11 if we needed to get a day pass. The Gods were obviously smiling on us today because as we drove through there was no ranger on duty.
First stop was Lucky Bay – voted Austalia’s whitest beach – I imagine in summer it would be but there was a bit of weed on it today but we had a wonderful time walking along it admiring the incredible colour of the water. Paul found a starfish which the kids thought was great and they really enjoyed watching their feet sink into the sand. All the advertisements for Lucky Bay talk about how the kangaroos come right down onto the beach – we saw none – although in their defence the kids were running around like mad things – enough to scare anything off.
We then went to all the little bays Cape Le Grand had to offer, including Whistling Rock which we though looked more like a wave rock when the boys stood under it. We stopped at Hellfire Bay for lunch which was gorgeous and probably our favourite spot in the National Park. Our last stop was Le Grand Beach which you can drive along to get back to Esperance in the summer months but the lady in the visitor centre didn’t recommend doing at this time of year which was a real shame.
Back in the car we drove further east to Wharton Beach. Paul, our nature spotter managed to stop and turn around so we could see two blue tongue lizards and a snake along the way. When we got there it turned out to be two beaches Little Wharton and Wharton. We headed to the little one first – divine. Probably my favourite spot of the whole day. We then drove down to Wharton Beach which was very nice too but the sand was a bit soft to drive right on to it so we stopped at the bottom of the ramp and that’s when the kids spotted them. Sand dunes. What is a kid to do when they spot a pristine sand dune – run up it and jump down obviously and that’s what they all did and obviously were having a great time judging by the ‘just a bit longer’ that we got when they had to get back in the car.
The next planned adventure was to drive up the rock just outside of Esperance – I had been really looking forward to doing this – I love a good 4WD challenge but somehow we missed the turn off. I would say deliberately but there were virtually no signposts and I was doing the navigating – a bad combination really. So I missed my drive up the rock which I am still disappointed about.
We ended up driving along the Ocean Drive again to get back to the campground and it was even more beautiful today with the sun shining and the best part – Paul finally got to see a whale down south. We have been in whale watching territory for over a week but the weather has been so bad that there is no way we could have spotted one in the rough sea but today it finally happened. We had just stopped to get a photo and as I was getting back in the car we saw this spurt of water and there she was – she spent ages just floating in the waves. I think Paul can leave the south west a happy man.
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