Cape Le Grand and Cape Arid (Day 8 - Day 12)

We did the scenic ocean drive around Esperance in the morning and checked out the wind turbines along the coast. As usual it was great wind turbine weather - bloody windy! After a visit to the information centre in town we were ready to head out to Cape Le Grand.

We had been to Esperance a couple of years before without a trailer and we did the drive from Esperance to the Cape Le Grand National Park along the beach. It was summer and I recalled the beach being wide, flat and quite hard packed. It is currently winter and the beach is not in as good condition as I recalled. What's more I was only remembering the Cape Le Grand end. The Esperance end was narrower and softer and at this time of year covered in seaweed mounds and drifts. Shouldn't be an issue I said. Dannii was not as comfortable with the idea but I was still convinced we'd be fine since the tide was on the way out.

As one should do before heading onto the beach in any vehicle I dropped the tyre pressures. The trouble was I was still remembering the Le Grand end from two years ago (flat, wide, hard packed and easy to drive) and decided to be lazy and not let so much air out so I didn't have to put as much back in at the other end. I think you know where this is heading...

Well, we were doing well for a while until it got a bit narrower and softer and wouldn't you know it, we stopped. Yep. Bogged! Not a problem I thought albeit with a little bit of a heart murmur when I looked at the ocean and I could have sworn the waves looked like they were closer! We would be alright. We had shovels, Maxtrax, winch, chairs, beers, oh and a dirty great big one-and-a-half tonne anchor hitched to the back of the car!

Low range, back it up a bit, ease it forward. Didn't want to go. We got on the shovels and cleared the wheels and put the Maxtrax down. I tried taking off and the wheels gripped the Maxtrax, spun and shoved the Maxtrax straight under the sand. They completely disappeared! Hmmm. This wasn't working out like you see on the commercials!

While Dannii commenced excavating and Maxtrax prospecting a friendly local had kindly offered to snatch us out if we needed. I was convinced we would be able to complete the recovery on our own and admitted two things:

1. Dannii was right, the beach was not the best choice to get to the National Park, and

2. Being stingy on letting air out of the tyres was definitely the wrong decision when towing on the beach.

I dropped the tyres down to about 18psi (I could go further if needed) and Dannii successfully found the Maxtrax. We reset, and drove straight out of the hole no dramas. It's all about the tyre pressures!

We chatted with the local who had patiently waited for us to extract ourselves just in case we needed help and found out that the beach was a little more strenuous further on. We decided caution was the better part of valour in this case and doubled back off the beach to take the sealed road out to the Cape. A good lesson learned and at least we had practiced one sand recovery.

We made camp at Lucky Bay and planned to stay 3 nights. There were a few caravans down at Lucky Bay and everyone was quite friendly. Not much to see from the camping site but a short walk down onto the beach allowed you to look out at the archipelago islands and various hills around.

Sadly this time of year is not conducive to the postcard perfect beach conditions so everywhere was looking pretty chopped up and seaweedy. But the water was still the same spectacular turquoise blue colour and while it did look very inviting, it was quite cold.

The next day we explored the rocks jutting out into the ocean at the Western end of Lucky Bay and then did the walk from Lucky Bay over to Thistle Cove and back. It was a nice walk in the sun and there were plenty of rock scrabbling opportunities along the way. When we got back to camp we had lunch and chilled out before taking a drive over to Rossiter Bay. The road out to Rossiter is miserably corrugated and horrible! The beach at Rossiter Bay was also chopped up by the winter swells and covered in seaweed drifts. It is also a lot less interesting than Lucky Bay. That night we listened to the footy on the radio and celebrated the Hawks getting up over the Cats.

Day three at Cape Le Grand was nice and sunny and we did the walking track to Rossiter Bay. It was about a 4 hour return walk for us and we didn't go all the way to Rossiter just to the ridge between the two bays. We saw countless lizards along the way and even a few snakes and a goanna. What was most interesting was the different plant life along the walk. A real mix of coastal, inland, arid, windswept and little sheltered lush areas along the way.

We decided that a dip was the order of the afternoon once we got back from our walk so we donned the boardies and jumped in the water. It was cold! Not Victorian winter water cold but it was still quite fresh! Meanwhile a couple of locals drove along the beach right in front of the camp area and managed to get themselves completely stuck. We were kind enough to let them borrow a shovel and set of Maxtrax but they couldn't budge the truck. There was no way we were driving down to winch them out just in case we met the same fate but one camper was brave enough and decided they had sweated it out enough. With his winch line out to just about the limit he extracted the unlucky locals and everyone was happy.

We figured we would finish off the day by walking to the top of Frenchman Peak to watch the sunset so we headed out to start the walk. Yes it is classed as a walk though it heads up the granite at about a 60 degree angle from horizontal! Dannii had a minor freakout (not a fan of heights) but steeled her resolve to make it to the first plateau because a little kid had already done it and was heading back down past us.

I completed the climb to the summit on my own while Dannii waited at the cave. We opted not to wait for sunset up there so we didn't have to come back down that slope in the dark. We had some great views and took a bunch of photos, some of which were okay and then headed back to the car. It turns out Dannii was more comfortable walking down a wall than walking up it.

The morning of our 4th day at Cape Le Grand saw us complete our pack up and we departed Lucky Bay and headed for Cape Arid.

We headed to Cape Arid via Condingup where we were told a drive down to the Duke of Orleans Bay was a must. After a 20km drive down there we were not very impressed. As was with all the beaches in the area the winter tides had destroyed the beach and left nothing but seaweed drifts however we could see that this would be a lovely area to visit in summer. We then turned back and headed back for Condingup and onto Cape Arid. When we arrived at Cape Arid it was noticeably more arid and very remote compared with Cape Le Grand. We decided that the Thomas River campsite would be the best option and whilst driving around the campsites to work out where we would set up we came across an older couple who flagged us down to let us know that there were whales in close to shore around at Dolphin Cove. We then chose our camp, unhitched the trailer and then headed around to Dolphin Cove hopeful that the Whales would still be there. To our amazement there was a Southern Wright whale mother and her calf literally 20m of the rocks we were standing on! We watched in awe as these massive creatures seemed to be playing in the water. At one point the calf had perched itself on its mothers head and was having a great old time. We could have sat for hours watching them but as the sun was setting it was time to head back and set up the swags.

The next morning we decided to do the hike from our campsite across to Dolphin Cove again and then onto Tagon Bay. This time we saw two sets of mothers and their calves in Dolphin Cove with another couple heading in. As we got around to Tagon Bay more whales could be seen in the distance including Humpbacks breaching way out in the distance. After our walk back to camp we jumped in the car to explore the more remote areas of the park only accessible via 4wd. The plains were impressive as there was a mountain range in the distance which really gave a sense of size and scale and an eerie remote beauty. We drove into Jorndee Creek - another camp area to take a look and then walked down to where Jorndee creek runs into the Southern Ocean, a lovely area. It was now dark and time to drive back to camp ready to pack up in the morning to head up to the Eyre Highway.