Esperance Roadtrip: Days 1-3

I have some updates for you in the pipeline from my dive on the Navy Pier (I finally did it!) and my 4 days in Karijini National Park (incredible hikes through watery gorges), but right now I'm on a road trip with Weronika and after today we realized that this is gonna be a multiple-posts trip. So! New plan: send updates from this trip and then circle back to the others!

Sunday afternoon I flew down to Perth from Exmouth. Weronika picked me up at the airport and we spent the evening hanging out in Attadale with Wiebke and Nat and their new housemate Elisa who is delightful. Had some excellent Indian food and generally reassured Wiebke that we wouldn't have TOO much fun without her. She and Nat will meet up with us on Friday anyway, halfway through our trip.

My rosemary plant in Attadale is thriving without me!

Yesterday morning we grabbed a rental car and hit the road by 9am to drive the 8 hours to Esperance on the southern coast of Western Australia. Halfway through the drive is an Australian icon: Wave Rock. Obviously we stopped for a photo.

Collecting the rental

Wave Rock!

Made it to Esperance a bit after 5 and we were HUNGRY. Stopped by the local pub, The Pier Hotel, for some dinner and then headed to our Airbnb to get settled in. It's an adorable garden studio and I would happily live there forever.

Went to the beach, a 5 minute walk from the Airbnb, and then headed off to bed.

Today we stopped into the Esperance Hot French Bread Bakery for breakfast and fell in love. So many pastries. Strolled around town for a little while and then began the Great Ocean Drive. It's a 40k circuit road and has some of Australia's best beaches along the way (who voted on this I could not tell you, but I understand why they were elected).

Snake in the road

We saw a pod of maybe 25 dolphins while we were here!

Taking photos of wild flowers

Twilight Beach was maybe my favorite

Twilight Beach

We were pretty exhausted by the end of the drive (so many stairs!), so Weronika took a little cat nap while I showered back at our rental. Off to a locally-recommended beach for sunset and then did a 25 minute drive to a town north of here, Gibson, for dinner at another local recommended pub.

Tomorrow: Cape Le Grand National Park and Lucky Bay!

Charles Knife Canyon

A few weeks back (during school holidays) I was SO PUMPED to find out that I had two days in a row off from work and thought briefly about going camping to make the most of the time. I was going to just head south and wander; see where the wind took me. That became a really literal thing, though, when I checked the weather reports and realized I was like to blow away if I went. The winds were going to be really strong and I couldn't imagine it was going to be fun to be trapped in my car in order to avoid blowing sand. I re-imagined and briefly considered going to Karratha, one of the closest cities to Exmouth at 5.5 hours away, to visit and check things out, but all the accommodations were booked solid (due to it being school holidays). I also wasn't totally convinced it was worth the drive considering that most people, when asked what there is to do in Karratha, immediately mention that it has a McDonald's and a KMart! Not super impressive, per my thinking. Eventually I decided a staycation was in order! Sandra and David had a friend visiting, Nugget (yes, that's his nickname), so we had been spending a lot of time hanging out around the house and generally burning the candle at both ends; I was borderline sick, so sticking close to home and resting up seemed like a good idea. 

There's a canyon in the Cape Range that I've been hearing about for ages but haven't gotten my act together to visit. It's called Charles Knife and it's actually located on the Gulf side of the peninsula. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet but Exmouth is located on the eastern, Gulf side of the peninsula. To get to the west side, the Indian Ocean side where the Ningaloo Reef is located, you've got to drive around the perimeter of the thing; there aren't roads that cut through the Cape Range which runs down the center of the peninsula. Here's a little map I stole from the interwebs:

The blogger who made this handy map must not have done the Charles Knife hike but it's located about halfway between town and the Learmouth Airport on the lower right side. Because it overlooks the Exmouth Gulf to the east, it's supposed to have spectacular sunrise views, so I got it into my head that I wanted to see it! I woke up at 5 and got rolling. 

Important to remember that it's springtime here: our days are getting longer and starting earlier. I didn't keep that in mind when planning and woke up to find that the pre-dawn was in full swing. It's probably a 25 minute drive to get into the Canyon from town, so I was really really pumped that I made it before the sun popped over the horizon. Barely. Next time I'll need to get up a bit earlier to properly enjoy the color show before dawn!

Moon over the Charles Knife Canyon

It was really, really beautiful and well worth getting out of bed for. But I didn't want to just passively enjoy the views, I wanted to get my feet on the ground. So I hopped back into the car and drove into the canyon until I found a trail head for the Badjirrajirra Bush Walk. 

Spinifex plants as far as the eye can see

Shothole Canyon as seen from the Badjirrajirra Walk

It was a beautiful hike and close enough to town that I still had cell service and could call and show it to Mom and Dad live. I had taken precautions - informed friends of my plans, left a note in the car with my departure details, had plenty of water and snacks, etc. - but it was still nice to be able to call and share the views with M&D even from half a world away. 

On the drive back to town, I encountered an Exmouth traffic jam:

Mama Emu and her chicks after crossing the road