Thursday 12th April 2018
Today was another tourist day, this time exploring Esperance.

After an early morning swim at Esperance Pool we headed to Le Grand National Park. First on our agenda was to climb Frenchman’s Peak. This was listed as a grade 5 hike, 3km in 3 hours. This seemed a little over the top time wise but only time will tell. It was a big rock scramble but we reached the top in a comfortable 30 minutes. The views from the top were amazing. The wind at the top was very strong and it was quite cool. It was strong enough that you had to hold on to your hat and keep surefooted as the gusts could over balance you a little. Climbing down was a little slower but the overall walk only took about 80mins.

Next stops were Lucky Bay where we drove on the beach and the colour of the ocean and white sand was spectacular. There were also some kangaroos on the beach. Then we headed to Thistle Cove and Hellfire Bay, unfortunately the wind had come up and the sky had clouded over so it wasn’t as pretty as it could have been.

Next a 22km drive along the beach from Cape Le Grand to Wylie Bay. The NP girl said it can get quite soft and difficult to drive on the sand at the half way mark but we will see how we go. As usual DB didn’t let the tyres down nor did he start off in 4WD (in his defence the first beach we were on the sand was very firm). It wasn’t until he had to rev as hard as the car could go and we almost hit our head as we went over a bump as he didn’t want to slow down that he decided it was time to drop the air and use low range. I asked him did he think maybe we should have brought Matts Maxx Tracks as suggested. One day he will learn to prepare for the situation rather than react to it. All in all it was a nice drive even though it was very windy and the surf was very choppy. Hopefully not a sign of things to expect in the Aussies. I really hate competing in the chop.

Once we were back on bitumen at Esperance we followed the Great Ocean Drive which was a loop along the beaches. It was very pretty. We then went to Australia’s first windmill farm.

At about 6pm we headed off to our next stop for the night, a 2 hour drive to Ravensthorpe. ETA 8pm. Another dark setup and cook. We have shown Graham and Nigel how to fill a day to the max. We finally found a spot in the dark and setup camp. We know we need to get in earlier but struggle every time. Something we are going to try to work on improving after Aussies.