One of the big draw cards for Esperance is Cape Le Grand National, notably Lucky Bay with its ice blue waters (which coincidentally is about how warm they are) and kangaroos that come up to have selfies. Like every other basic bitch around, we just had to visit.

But first! The rest of the park.

I managed to get Glen out of the house around 8am on Tuesday after loading up the back with everything we could possibly need for a full day exploring the national park. However, knowing what our track record is, we should have packed much less as we barely lasted half a day.

The national park is about 45 minutes east of Esperance and sports a number of beaches, hills and walking trails to indulge in. In the end we only did a few of the highlights.

First stop was Le Grande Beach, which we went to because Frenchman’s Peak wasn’t well sign-posted and I went the wrong way. The beach isn’t much to right home about as it is completely covered in dry seaweed. However, it does have some pretty good camping and ablution facilities (which I had to avail myself of).

Site visited I then drove to Frenchman Peak (or its proper name, which is Mandooboornup), which is a big granite dome with a pointy head. It’s 262m tall and involves some steep clambering up rock faces to get to the top, battling the occasion burst of wind that threatens to either launch you off the rock or slam you into the side of it.

Armed with our new camel-back backpacks we set off, almost stepping on a baby Dugite within the first 50m. I was completely oblivious, and in front, but Glen saved the day by stopping me from stepping on its tail as it slithered off into the undergrowth. The whole mission was almost aborted…

We also saw a black skink sunning itself on one of the big boulders, but no other reptiles were spotted during our hike.

The ascent was harder than I was expected and the steep beginning made me wonder what we were going to do about coming back down again as the rockface didn’t seem to support two-way traffic. We stopped a few times on our way up, to take in the view, not at all to catch out breath.

We reached the top of the peak in about 25 minutes, collapsing on the surface to again take in the view, and to chat to the family of four who were already up there. They hailed from Mackay in Queensland but had up-stumps some time ago and spent three months managing two caravan parks in South Australia, before attempting the crossing to WA.

They spent more time in Ceduna than anyone should ever really do before taking the plunge and spending two weeks in their caravan out in the middle of nowhere to undertake their quarantine. They then went out to the property where they’ll be living for a while.

The guy has been hired to drive one of the million dollar harvesters, and like the latte-sipping metropolitan types Glen and I are, we were able to make some meaningful contribution to the conversation because we’d heard a story on Radio National about how this year is a bumper crop and the farmers can’t get their usual skilled labour into the country to drive these million dollar harvesters.

Instead, they’re giving people a bit of training and telling them that the hardest thing they have to do is not fall asleep during their twelve-hour shift.

The family is then going to do various swings on the property and travel in between harvesting and planting. The kids seemed not at all impressed with being made to go to school again after so long on the road and being homeschooled.

After our excessive rest taking in the view we started our descent which was actually much easier than going up, and the steep bit was a doddle (though Glen did resort to sliding down on his bum at one section). The whole thing would have been quite fun in a sled (provided you had something soft to land on).

From Frenchman Peak we went to Lucky Bay. Thanks to my polaroid sunglasses, the water was as crystal blue as I’ve ever seen and was a real spectacle coming over the hill. We parked the car, grabbed our esky and went to down to the beach.

All of the sand was wet and we stupidly didn’t bring with us the expensive camping chairs we’d bought, instead leaving them in the car where they could be most useful. We made a sandwich, had a cup of tea, and then I braved the water, which was about the coldest I’ve been in after Antarctica. It was bracing and not something you’d want to spend a lot of time in.

As for the kangaroos? None. Not one. Granted it was in the middle of the day so we probably could have timed that better, but you’d think they’d have put together some sort of roster, don’t you? Instead we had one bothersome seagull who kept us company for a while.

Glen was too tired to do much else after Lucky Bay (granted, we’d both had a pretty rotten night’s sleep) and was keen to go home and have a nap. I pushed for a stop at Thistle Cove, which has Whistling Rock and another beach.

We went for a short walk and promptly had an argument, which ended with me storming off and taking the long way around the rocky head and back to the car. The climbing was fun and I saw a little dragon, which was a bonus. I got back to the car but Glen wasn’t there.

Concerned he might have thought I drowned, I went back to the rock where I’d left him and he was napping on the bench, unbothered at all. I collected him and I drove back to Esperance while he slept the whole way. I got a quick glimpse of Stonehenge (the fake one) as we passed it.

We arrived back at the accommodation and we both went for naps. It seemed that perhaps maybe both of us were a little tired. The couch here is quite comfy.

As for the rest of Cape Le Grand National Park, there’s a lot more to discover but most of it is either along trails (the shortest one was between Thistle Cove and Lucky Bay, which was “1 hour”) or you need a 4WD. If we had more time (and weren’t so tired), I’d probably attempt a few of them, though as they’re all one-way I’d very much want someone to pick me up at the other end…

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