Day 38, Wednesday 26 August 2026

First full day in Esperance, 25 degrees, clear blue skies.  So warm today I have had to wear shorts and display my lily white legs for the first time on my trip.  As I have only brought one short sleeved shirt with me I have visited the local gentlemans outfitter and purchased two new short sleeved shirts.  Having purchased these shirts I can guarantee this will be the first and last warm day I get on this trip.

Esperance is a nice town with a population of about 13,000.  It is a major port and handles huge amounts of grain bound I daresay overseas.  The town has a nice little shopping centre with a couple of pubs.  Of course being winter the place is very quiet but like some of the other towns I have been through it depends a lot on the summer holiday trade.  It is also the centre of a large rural area and the centre of local government and government departments.  

A grain ship waiting to be loaded.

A bit like Busselton Esperance also makes the most of it's waterfront with a boardwalk, nice sheltered beaches and a pier.  One of the beaches is netted, I suppose to keep sharks out.

A couple of views of the beach and town

I have previously mentioned that WA has excellent, pot hole free straight roads, but they do have one peculiarity, their roundabouts.  It is a bit hard to explain but on the big roundabouts on the main roads you come across a sort of double roundabout.  A roundabout in a roundabout if you wish.  Somewhat confusing the first time you come across it, but it seems to work.

Western Australians are generally friendly and happy to tell you how great their state is.  They do get a bit defensive when the matter of all extra GST funding they receive at the expense of the eastern states. Although there are empty shops and businesses in the main streets of the towns there is nothing like the vacancies we see in the CBD and Chapel Street in Melbourne or in rural Victoria..  There appears to be a bit of a problem with vagrancy, homelessness and the "ill at ease" both in Perth and the smaller towns.  But, from casual observation this could have a lot to do with drugs as well as the economy.

The exception to the friendly Western Australians was the reception lady at the caravan park in Hopetoun. In the tradition of caravan park owners and managers world wide she was grumpy, rude and totally unhelpful.  

This afternoon I went for a drive on a tourist drive known as "The Great Ocean Drive" or alternatively as the "Tourist Loop".  It is a 40km drive which loops around past some magnificent beach, cliff and seaside scenery.  It also takes in a local feature known as the Pink Lake, this is its actual name, not a nickname, however shortly after being formally named the Pink Lake it ceased to pink. The lake was pink due to a certain concentration of salt in it, when the salt concentration changed it went back to being a normal sort of watery colour but the name has been retained.

Anybody for a dip?

The Pink Lake, no longer pink

Dinner tonight was at the pub next door and was a magnificent roast rolled pork belly with truffle mash and green beans.  I thought that this was photo worthy and blog worthy but unfortunately I had run out of flash bulbs for my camera.

At last I have wifi with enough oomf to let me post photos in the blog.  The above pics are just a range of photos taken on the tourist loop just before sunset. (No flashbulbs required for these photos).