Last weekend I was able to take a 3 day weekend and decided to spend it on a trip to Esperance and the southern coast. I set out early Friday morning and before I’d even left the driveway I saw my very first kangaroo. That’s when I knew it would be a good trip.
As you head south the scenery gets much greener very quickly and for much of the time it turns into a lovely drive through the hills. In remote areas people on the road are very friendly and almost every car will give you a wave as you pass. At first it seemed like it might get annoying but when you’re driving so remotely you really don’t pass that many people and it’s actually fun to have a bit of interaction and sense of comradery with your fellow travelers.
On the way to Esperance I learned that someone I had met in Perth and got on really well with was also in Esperance for the weekend and staying at the same caravan park. On the way there I stopped off at the east end of Munglinup Beach for a few hours. This turned out to be the first if many roads I’ve been on that my car is simply not built for. The car I’ve been given is an old sedan, which you’ll see later, and the many kilometers of corrugated dirt roads to get to this beach took quite some to traverse. Thankfully the car is still intact and it was well worth the effort. I had a nice hike through the dunes over to Oldfield Estuary and back with beautiful views and the only other person I saw was an old guy fishing on the beach. I of course had a quick dunk in the ocean before getting in the road again which was a much needed refresher by that point.
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| Oldfield Estuary, where the fresh water and salt water meet |
Once I arrived in Esperance I set up my tent for the weekend, and my friend’s site was just across the driveway which was convenient. I treated myself out to dinner and drove back along the Great Ocean Drive (a looping drive around Esperance that passes all the nearby beaches) to catch the sunset. The night then ended with a nice chat with my friends and we made plans for Saturday.
The next morning we headed to Cape Le Grand National Park which was absolutely beautiful. We started at Lucky’s Beach and spent some time there relaxing and having a swim. The beaches there have nice white sand and gorgeous blue waters. We then visited several of the other bays before fueling up for our afternoon hike: Frenchman’s Peak. This climb was my favorite part of the day. It was not a very challenging climb but since there was no trail and it was mostly rocky it felt like you were really climbing a mountain which was kind of exciting. It was cooler and cloudy so we didn’t have the clearest view from the top but the journey and sense of accomplishment was enjoyable enough to be worth it. On our drive back to camp we saw a lot of kangaroos and several emus along the side of the road which was very exciting for me and another highlight of the weekend.
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| Hellfire Bay |
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| Frenchman’s Peak |
I headed out early again on Sunday so I had time to explore another beach on my way back to the farm, and just as I was leaving the beach I got word that my farm family has gotten covid over the weekend. This was kind of good news for me because it meant I could spend another day or so along the coast. The nearest town was Hopetoun and there was a free campsite just north of it so I decided to check it out and spend the night there, which turned out to be a very spooky experience and definitely the most scared I have been in a long time. This site was at a trail head and evidently also an old gold mining site so there were some old metal sheds scattered amongst the bushes. It was very quiet and there was nobody else there. I hopped in my tent for safety and made dinner in there (a sandwich) and then went straight to bed. After I got a few hours of sleep in and was just lying awake I decided to call it quits. So at 3am I packed up and went back to town to catch the sunrise on the beach. It was definitely the right move and the timing actually worked out perfectly.
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My setup at the spooky campsite
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I had originally intended to spend the day at the national park next to Hopetoun and spend another night at the site, but seeing as that was no longer an option I opted for a long a winding drive back to the farm. I stopped at a number of overlooks I happened to pass, jaunted over to the rabbit proof fence, and finished with a hike around Wave Rock in Hyden before returning to the farm. It turned out to be just what I was in the mood for that day. Going back to Wave Rock, they have a salt pool there that is extra salty (I've hears similar to the Dead Sea) so of course I had to try it out. It was very cool. It felt like you were in one of those donut shaped pool floaties without actually having one. I also talked to a friendly, elderly Irishman while enjoying the view from the top of the rock. He seems to have led a full and interesting life and calls his kind a “grey nomad”. He’s been back and forth between Australia and home for years, ever-moving and traveling about between jobs here and there, finding jobs in London and other places along the way. For the time being I think this lifestyle has a certain appeal and I fancy myself a younger version of the grey nomad these days, taking opportunities one day at a time.
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| Hippo’s Yawn along the Wave Rock walking trail (because it looks like a hippo’s mouth) |
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| Wave Rock |
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| Salt Pool |
This week I’ve also had my first real bit of sheep work in the yards weighing lambs and I actually really enjoyed it. My job was to funnel the sheep into the weigh station, which involves getting small groups into the narrow part of the fence and using my legs and shoving them with my knees to keep them there. They often try to break away or turn around and then it just clogs up the flow of the system so it’s important to keep them in a tight pack so they can’t do either of those things. It can get rather messy because prior to weighing the sheep are kept at the feed lot and only eat grain, which they are not used to and it takes a noticeable toll on their digestive tract. Let’s just say I was glad I waited to do laundry until after the day of working with sheep as my pants were smeared with loads of sheep excrement.
I also realized I did not mention much about my farm family in the last post. My employers are named Elle and Brian and they have 3 kids: Tom (7), Will (5), and Claire (2). Elle and the kids are who I spend most of my time with as Brian is busy harvesting all day every day this time of year. The children are certainly tough to work with at times as I have little to no authority with them and there are good and bad days, but when they’re in a pleasant mood we have great fun playing hide and seek, reading books, and building forts.Brian’s parents, Robbie and Alan, also live on the farm and we are about 10 minutes from town, which really isn’t bad for out here. The population of Kulin is less than 800, and since everything is so spread out it’s hard to tell there’s even that many people around.