Tuesday, October 27, 2020

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!

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