Esperance (wikipedia) is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, on the Southern Ocean coastline approximately 720 kilometres (450 mi) east-southeast of the state capital, Perth. Esperance is home to 9,919 people (2011 census). Its major industries are tourism, agriculture, and fishing. The Shire of Esperance is home to 13,477 people. History European history of the region dates back to 1627 when the Dutch vessel Gulden Zeepaert, skippered by François Thijssen, passed through the blue waters off the Esperance coast. French explorers are credited with making the first landfall near the present day town, naming it and other local landmarks whilst sheltering from a storm in this area in 1792. The town itself was named after a French ship, the Espérance, commanded by Bruni d’Entrecasteaux. Espérance, is French for ‘hope’. In 1802, British navigator Matthew Flinders sailed the Bay of Isles, discovering and naming places such as Lucky Bay and Thistle Cove. Whalers, sealers and pirates followed, as did pastoralists and miners, keen to exploit the free land and cash in on the gold boom in the gold fields to the north. The area of the Esperance townsite was first settled by the Dempsters, a pioneer family of Scottish descent, in the 1870s. A telegraph station was opened in 1876, although the formal gazettal of the townsite did not occur until 1893. The town jetty was also built through the 1890s, following the discovery of gold in the eastern goldfields region. The population of the town was 985 (623 males and 362 females) in 1898. The mallee area approximately 100 km north of the town began grain production in the 1920s, and by 1935 the construction of a second jetty, tankers jetty, was completed. Agriculture was introduced to the Esperance sand plain by an American syndicate, in partnership with the state government, in the 1960s following the discovery that adding superphosphate fertilisers containing trace elements to the poor soils made them suitable for cropping and pastoral activity. Despite early difficulties, the project eventually became a success and large areas of land were cleared during this time. In 1979, pieces of the space station Skylab crashed onto Esperance after the craft broke up over the Indian Ocean. The municipality fined the United States $400 for littering. The fine was paid in April 2009, when radio show host Scott Barley of Highway Radio raised the funds from his morning show listeners, and paid the fine on behalf of NASA. Skylab’s demise was an international media event, with merchandising, wagering on time and place of re-entry, and nightly news reports. The San Francisco Examiner offered a $10,000 prize for the first piece of Skylab to be delivered to their offices. 17-year-old Stan Thornton scooped a few pieces of Skylab off the roof of his home in Esperance, caught the first flight to San Francisco, and collected the prize. Climate Esperance experiences a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb) with warm, dry summers and cool, wet winters. It is subject to wide variations in the weather, from hot summer days when northerly winds arrive from the interior of the state, to cold, wet winter days with southerly winds from the Great Southern Ocean. Annually, the city has 85.5 clear days.

25^th March, Wednesday

Winter is definitely on the way as the mornings and evenings have turned chilly. We left Norseman at about 8 am for Esperance. Not a long drive, about 200kms. The road along the way is mainly through wheat farms and at this time of the year all is quite as it’s not harvest time which was great for us as the roads were quite and there weren’t many road trains. We stopped off in Salmon Gums for our coffee and sandwich.  We parked across the road from an Elders shop and the owner and son came across the road to have a chat. Country towns are all like this, so friendly and everyone has the time to have a chat. We arrived in Esperance at about 11am.  The caravan is nice and Hugo is happy again as he has grass, poor thing hasn’t seen any for awhile.  The minute he got out the car he had a roll and a bit of a chomp. We have been given a double site, we have been so lucky with the sites we have been getting. We had a drive around town for a look, see and to do some groceries.  From what we saw Esperance looks like a lovely town and we are looking forward to go exploring. We have booked Hugo into Doggie day care for Friday.  He is going to have a shampoo and a bit of a pamper as he really needs it. We will visit the National Park while he is there as we don’t need to pick him up until late afternoon.

26^th March, Thursday

A bit slow off the mark this morning but Hey! what’s the rush? The mornings are cold and it takes a little while to get going. It’s a beautiful clear sunny day, the temperature is in the low 20’s. We had breakfast and then Ralph dropped me off at the hairdresser so I could get rid of the “Grey Nomad” look. After my transformation we took a drive along the Scenic Beach road. The coast and the beaches take your breath away, it’s so beautiful. My photos don’t give them or the colour of the water justice. Esperance boasts the best beaches in Australia and I have to say that we obviously haven’t seen them all but these are the best we have seen so far. The sand is white, it’s like walking on Talcum powder it’s so fine. The water is turquoise and a deep blue and the contrast is stunning. I didn’t take photos of all the beaches as there are many and they are all as spectacular as each other, this really is a beautiful place and we don’t know why we left it so long to visit, never mind, we will be back. There is quite a large wind farm here but not the biggest we’ve seen. There was one is South Australia where we counted over 100 towers. The pink lake is a salt lake and the blurb about what makes it pink is on the photo I have posted.  Today it didn’t look that pink and we think that it has something to do with the light and time of day. On the way back to town we stopped and bought some locally caught fish to take home with us and stopped off at a Turkish bakery and bought way to much sweet sticky Eastern delights, we really don’t need to be eating this stuff but we can’t help ourselves. Back to base, Ralphie is watching the cricket and later will cook us some prawns. Once the sun goes down it gets cold so we bunk in early. Tomorrow Hugo is booked into the doggie day care and parlour and we are going to the National park for the day.

27th March, Friday

Windy today with some cloud cover. We had an issue with the plumbing from the kitchen sink. Mr. Fix it did a quick dash to Bunnings and came back with some fancy contraption and fixed the problem, someone, akka me, let a wash cloth go down the plug hole, nothing worse than blocked plumbing ☺. We took Hugo to the parlor/day care that I had booked yesterday only to walk in and see small cages in the room where the grooming is done.  We asked the woman if Hugo was going to spend the whole day in the cage which was so small that he wouldn’t be able to stand up, turn around or have a wee. She said yes of course he was because that’s all she has. We said “No way”, and she looked at us as though we were crazy to think that our dog wouldn’t be happy in a tiny cage for the day.  Her advert in the local Tourist rag reads “TRAVELLERS! Why not get your dog pampered and groomed while exploring our beautiful National Parks and Nature reserves”, she doesn’t say that they have to spend the whole day in a room in a small frigging cage where they can’t even scratch themselves (shame on her).  After we left there, we googled kennels and found a lovely one close by and the lady had a vacancy for today.  Hugo would be happier there as there was lots of lawn in the exercise area and a huge kennel where he could go outside or stay inside with a lovely big doggy bed. The lady who ran the place was great and a very caring person. We explored the East side of Esperance today, through Cape Le Grand National Park and again the coast is so breath takingly beautiful. The dunes are gorgeous and very lush, heaps of growth and very green, everything here looks so healthy. Our first stop was Thistle Cove and there was a whole pod of dolphins (about 20 in number) frolicking around in the waves, they were having an awesome time jumping and surfing in on the waves, it was such a bonus and it really made our day. We visited a few beaches and decided that we were hungry. We found a great little tavern at Condingup and they did the most amazing local fish and chips with a great salad.  After lunch we visited one more beach and had to get back to Esperance to pick Hugo up by 5 pm.  He was happy to see us but also looked like he had had a great day, I do know that he did get quite a few treats and Hugo being the guts he is would have lapped it all up. It looks like we might get some rain tonight, it was supposed to rain today but we were lucky and had sunshine most of the time.  The weekend is going to be sunny and warmer so we will do some more sights but will slow down and have some rest time as well. I know Sunday will be a no go day as the final for the World cup cricket is on.

28^th March, Saturday

A beautiful sunny warm day today with a slight cool breeze, this is paradise. We had a go slow day and just took a drive around town and the marina and read and vegged for the rest of the day, so not much gos today folks.

29^th March, Sunday

It’s a stunning day again today, 27degs. Ralph went fishing off the Jetty this morning, lots of fish there but all small stuff so what was pulled out got put back in to swim another day with their friends. Quiet day in watching the cricket and the Grand Prix and packing up slowly.  This is our last major stop before we head off tomorrow for home. We will spend 2 nights in Hyden, not much there to see apart from Wave Rock.