Week 21 – Albany – Esperance

Week 21 – Albany – Esperance – Cape Le Grand

September 17, 2018

Well the rain and wind continues! Welcome to WA (Windy Always). Albany is a very different place built around a series of inlets and harbours. The view from the lookouts is fantastic – even through the driving rain. You can see why people first settled here. Albany is WA’s oldest town as it was first settled by whalers. When gold was discovered inland at Kalgoorlie, Albany became a major landing place for many would be gold diggers. The granite mountains surrounding the area seem to pop up out of the water and land.

We drove out to the ocean side and visited some famous landmarks such as natural bridge, the blowholes and stony hill. Natural bridge is formed by the relentless pounding of the wild ocean on the granite landmass. The day we visited the surf was pounding with almost gale force winds.

There is also a structure built suspended over the ocean where the waves pound in, splashing up the Gap.

The blowholes was a good couple of km walk from the carpark. They were interesting but not as good as Kiama or Quobba. We dodged the rain though and that was impressive.

We drove up to Stony Hill. A huge granite outcrop fronting the ocean. The walk around the summit was supposed to be a half hour walk but a huge rain squall was coming in from the sea so we did it in 5 minutes!

The next day we visited the Porongorup mountains about 40km inland. Here there is a granite skywalk which has been built. A metal skywalk reached by ladders on top of a massive granite outcrop with views over the plain to the ocean. The bushwalk to get there was a 2 hour walk – straight up the mountain! The tough walk was through karri forests and got higher and higher.

The lookout was great but the view was limited due to the weather.

I’ve put in some photos from brochures to show what it should be like.

We had lunch at the tearooms and drove through the hinterland back to the van park.

Our van is adjacent to the beach with only the dunes separating us from the waves. The sound of the waves at night was awesome.

We drove a full day to Esperance but stopped for lunch at Ravensthorpe. Ravensthorpe is a pretty little town at the centre of a wide farming area. The paddocks around here are full of sheep, cattle, golden canola and green wheat. The rain has been a blessing here.

Ravensthorpe also was hosting its wildflower expo so nanna spent a time in the exhibition. She thought it was brilliant. The wildflowers around here are astounding.

Esperance is a little bit protected from the wild south-westerly winds as it faces east. It’s still raining though.

We took a drive around the ocean road after lunch as the wind and rain was easing a bit. The wind was so fierce it covered the car in salt, even though the road was well away from the beach itself. The waves are huge, smashing into the islands off the coast and making huge impacts on the beaches. We were the only idiots on the beaches, but it was awesome to see the power of the wind.

We visited the pink lake (which isn’t pink). It used to be but the saltwater (which caused the algae to make the lake pink) was cut off by the construction of the new highway into town.

The next day we went out to Cape Le Grand. The weather slightly better as the wind was easing but the sun didn’t make an appearance until well after lunch. There was a small wave at Cape Le Grand, but only on one peak with a crew on it as it was Saturday.

The beaches around here have been devastated by the huge swells and wind. They are full of smelly seaweed and the beaches have been eroded above the high tide mark due to the swells.

Lucky Bay didn’t have its special aqua colour due to the weather, and there were no roos on the beach. Perhaps in summer?

We visited all the bays and headlands, a pretty place which would be awesome in good weather. We decided not stay at the campground due to the weather. It seems we weren’t the only ones as the campsites were virtually empty.

We drove around a few beaches but a lot were inaccessible due to the waves scouring the beach creating drop offs from the track to the beach. There certainly has been a lot of damage to the beaches around here.

The next day was the first day in 5 weeks where we didn’t see a cloud. Sunny and warm, perfect.

The wind had even changed to an offshore for most of the day so the beaches had large waves. We set off in search of a surf for Pa. The beaches around here have rock shelves running parallel to the beach so there is a lagoon between this and the sand. It makes getting out to the surf and, more importantly, back in from the surf, very dangerous.

We drove around many beaches with no one surfing anywhere. Finally Pa went out at Twilight Beach. The surf was big but closing out on the sets. Pa didn’t stay out long but he got wet – bloody cold water too!