Esperance Australia

Esperance, Australia

We are still cruising in the Southern Ocean. Our port today is Esperance Australia, in the state of Western Australia. The capitol of Western Australia is Perth, our next port, and where our first cruise ends, and our second cruise begins.   Population of Esperance is 15,000. It is along Australia’s south coast. The town got its name from the name of the ship, the Esperance, that the French explorers, who is credited with making the first landing, arrived in.  Esperance is French for ‘Hope’.

Our excursion we chose to take in this port was a tour to Cape Le Grand National Park. which took us to 2 fabulous white sand beaches, and a full sized replica of the Stonehenge (in England)

Our tour took us through the Cape Le Grand National Park, where along our drive to the park we saw some areas that had blackened bush, and eucalyptus trees, where previous fires have destroyed bush and forests. Bushfires in Australia are frequent events during the hotter months of the year due to Australia’s mostly hot dry climate. In 2009 the bushfire they named ’Black Saturday’ 173 people died, 2000 homes and structures destroyed, some towns gutted. They tend to name the bushfires by what day they occur, like Ash Wednesday fire, Black Saturday fire. What an incredible sight as the bus began its descent down to ‘Lucky Bay’. WOW!! The contrast between water and sand as we approached this bay, called Lucky Bay was INCREDIBLE!  So Pristine!!!

 It was voted “the whitest beach in Australia”. The sand here is so fine and clean that it squeaks under your feet.  Even the kangaroos can’t resist lounging there.

 The whitest sand ever. Just think of every color of blue imaginable, and we saw it there.

There is also a campground there, wouldn’t it be fantastic to camp there, swim and lay on the white sand beach? Visit the kangaroos? Yes there were some kangaroos there, laying in the shade of some bushes. They were young kangaroos.

They could’ve cared less if we were there or not. OMG, the water was so beautiful. A boogie boarder was having fun skidding across the sand and water with his short board. They even drive on the beach here. The sand is hard, but when water washes over it, its super fine. It absorbs water, and stays wet to the touch. Weird sand.

Some of the tourists from the bus went swimming, we just walked along the beach until it was time to get back on the bus and go a short distance to ‘Hells fire’ Bay. Hells fire bay is probably a little prettier than Lucky Bay,  it’s a little smaller, more secluded. But still the same super white sand.

Amazingly beautiful. The Aboriginal name for this area was ‘Kepa Kurl’ which means….’the place where waters lay down like a boomerang’…

One of the mountain peaks in this National park is called, ’Frenchmans Peak’, because it was said to have looked like a frenchmans’ hat.

At the very top of the peak a large cave that probably was formed millions of years ago by wave action and underwater currents.
 It is a popular place for hikers. Now on to Stonehenge.

Esperance Stonehenge is the only full sized replica of the original Stonehenge in the U.K.

It appears as the original Stonehenge would have looked about 1950 BC. It consists of 137 stones of pink Granite that were all quarried locally around Esperance. This Stonehenge was built to align the Solstices in Esperance.  Its an amazing site to see.  Weddings are sometimes held there.

The owner and builder of this Stonehenge replica explaining how the project came about.

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