In hot pursuit of
fruit and vegetables, we bumped down the rough old road and into Esperence
where we guzzled pies and pasties in ‘le hot bread café’ before stocking up on
everything at the local Woolies. Then we turned on our heal and drove for about an hour to Cape Le Grande National Park. It was a slightly drizzly Monday and nowhere near school holidays so we were confident of getting a good spot. We decided on Lucky Bay campground but were surprised to find it crowded with grey nomads. We did get a spot but it was pretty cosy. We set up in the dark, surrounded by kangaroos and offers of assistance from friendly neighbours (who seemed a bit taken aback that we would cook outside with headtorches - one guy even offered to shine his car headlights on our stove!).
Next day we realised why the place is crowded. It's just a beautiful spot. A series of totally stunning beaches with white, white sand, rockpools, clear turquoise water... The sand was so sort of gluey that we could make the best sandcastles ever. We even saw a sandman (like a snowman but made of sand...). The kids had a glorious time making sand cakes, sand ice-creams and sand pancakes for a sand cafe they set up on the beach. Hours of entertainment.
Sash and Kate headed for Frenchmans Peak for a mountain climb in the afternoon. It was a steep but fantastic climb, past caves and bee hives to spectacular 360 degree views at the top. There was a cave near the top which felt like a pretty special spot (and indeed we met an Aboriginal man later in Esperence who told us his grandfather was born in that very cave). Sash loved this mountain so much that we did the climb again the next afternoon with Bill and Zara, then he begged to do it again every day until we left...
Everything was perfect except that Bill wasn't having any luck fishing, despite numerous attempts in different conditions and in different spots. So we all knew we couldn't stay there forever.
We got to know our neighbours, Kurt and Irene, who spend their lives working overseas then traveling around Australia in between contracts. They had a powered parachute on the back of their trailer - a hobby which takes them to airstrips and open paddocks all around Australia. It turned out that Kurt remembered Bill's dad from a long ago work connection. Kurt and Irene copied lots of episodes of the French series Miniscule for us to watch on the laptop. Thus we spent a few rainy evenings being enchanted by the antics of bugs.
Another neighbour was an 85 year old fellow from NSW who told us that he spends more time away from home touring Australia in his old caravan, than time at home sitting in flowery armchairs watching telly. He was a bit melancholy because he felt that it might be his last trip. However, when Kate and Sash were resting at Thistle Cove after a relatively strenuous hike, they were rather surprised to see their 85yo neighbour appearing down the walking track, slightly out of breath but otherwise intact. So we think he has probably a few trips left in him!
And then the rains came. Everything was wet and muddy, so we wrapped ourselves in blankets and snuggled down in the trailer to watch Red Dog. Zara has long been fascinated by this story and has been reading the book on this trip. Although he couldn't follow much of the movie, Sash was intrigued by Red Dog's death by poisoning, as well as the scene when Red Dog's farts cause the evacuation of the bus. Death and farts have now become two constant topics of questions and endless discussions for our nearly 4yo Sash...
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