Beautiful Esperance and other beaches

Tonight we are at Albany WA. We haven't looked around too much as we only arrived late this afternoon. The caravan park we are staying in is quite nice but quite expensive. Oh well we have stayed in alot of free camping spots, its nice to splash out now and then :). It has been raining off and on for most of the afternoon and then some hail tonight. A lady at the information centre told us Perth has been hammered by high winds and we are expected to get them sometime during the night ........ she said they were 125k an hour!!

After finishing the Nullabor we drove on to Esperance. I loved it. The town was built on a bay which is surrounded by Islands (Called the Bay of Islands). The bay was quite large, with beautiful white sand and clear blue water. It looked just like the holiday brochures advertising an island resort somewhere. The morning after arriving us and Flemings hopped on our bikes and scooters and headed off down the esplanade. We rode to the jetty and then along the jetty(not sure we were meant to do that......but no one told us not too lol). We were hoping to see Sammy the sea lion who is a regular at the jetty, eating scraps that the local fisherman throw to him when cleaning their fish. Except..... like the camels he was no where to be seen, we even went back 3 times and each time he remained elusive!! (we tried again the next day, but he was still hiding from us!)
In the afternoon we went on a tourist drive which claims to be one of the most beautiful in Australia (It definitely was nice). It initially took us around the beaches, one of them being Twilight beach which was voted the most popular beach in WA. At one of the beaches we saw what we thought was a whale, but we noticed there were too many fins. After looking through binoculars we noticed it was 2 whales, which we think were mating. We didn't give them much privacy though lol, we stayed taking photo's and videoing till they finished! We then traveled on to see a wind farm and then on to PinkLake, which is usually very pink because of the high salt conent, but due to alot of rain a couple of years ago, its only slighty pink right now. We stayed 2 nights in Esperance.
After leaving Esperance we took a detour to the sleepy seaside town called Bremer Bay. While at a lookout we saw another whale in the bay (we seem to have no problems spotting whales). We then went walking down some rocks and one of the kids spoted a seal. The was also some big rocks that the waves hit and made a huge splash, looked awesome.

Last night we stayed at the Cheynes Beach caravan park which is owned by Nathans Uncle and Auntie (Brian and Kath). We weren't sure we were going to go there now or wait till after Flemings headed home, but we at the last minute decided to stop there for the night. They ended up inviting us all for tea, which was a feast (we all couldn't believe they got a meal for that amount of people done at such short notice!!). Over dinner they told us all some family history about Brian and Bob's( his brother) growing up, and about his Mother (nathans Mum's, Mum). It was a really good night enjoyed by all. Their caravan park was lovely. It rained all night. This morning Brian gave us a map of 4WD tracks around the area, so off we all went. The first track was tame, just some puddles and mud from the rain we had had during the night. The track took us to a place called Waychinnicup, which consisted of a river that went out to the sea. We did some rock walking, with most of us getting wet feet, as the water came in and out with the tide. We then took some of the other tracks which were much more challenging, with both ours and Flemings cars getting bogged till the tyres were let down a bit. At one of he beaches we stopped at, I saw the biggest waves I have ever seen in my life. Nathan said they were probably about 12 feet high. The photoes don't look anywhere near as big. We had a great time at Cheynes Beach and are very greatful to Brian and Kath for their wonderful hospitality.

Nathan's proverb of the day: Like one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own. Proverbs 26 verse 17

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