Category: Esperance and South Coast

The West Australian coastline stretching for over 1,600km from Cape Leewin to Eucla.

Day 5: Mt Le Grand

While Frenchman Peak is a more popular hiking destination in Cape Le Grand, Mt Le Grand is the highest peak in the park. It rises 345 meters above sea level. The track to the summit from Cape Le Grand campground and back is around 6km.

Walking towards Mt Le Grand from our campground

After 40 degrees during Christmas Day the temperature dropped by nearly 20 degrees – perfect for hiking! With much cooler and cloudier weather, it a was great time to climb Mt Le Grand. We didn’t have to drive anywhere, as we camped at Cape Le Grand and Mt Le Grand was at out doorstep. The track is considered quite hard as you get further up. Not feeling like doing a work out on that day, we were happy to only hike part of it. Our aim was to take it easy and enjoy the scenery.

This south-west corner of Cape Le Grand National park is the most spectacular. Rugged granite peaks, born from molten rock 2500 million years ago, rise from the coastal plain. They form an amazing contrast to expansive coastal sand dunes. Wild coastal scenery, and sweeping heathlands with small freshwater pools characterise this area as a unique, bio diverse and rich in natural beauty place.

Climbing Mt Le Grand
Stopping to admire and appreciate the beauty

Our older (9-year-old) son Ariel has an amazing ability to notice and find interesting things. This time he found this colourful beetle which I took numerous pictures of.

Hiking further I found amazing diversity of vegetation. Getting closer to some of the plants and flowers I discovered their beauty and uniqueness.

Mt Le Grand is within Cape Le Grand National Park, 63km east of Esperance. It is roughly 630km south east of Perth in Western Australia.

Day 3: Lucky Bay and Hellfire Bay

Lucky Bay beach

Anyone who visits Lucky Bay gets lucky 😊. How can you not be lucky when you find yourself in a paradise like this! Lucky Bay is a beautiful white sandy beach in Cape Le Grand National Park, 630km south east of Perth. This place is renowned for its turquoise coloured waters. Friendly kangaroos often visit the beach. You can see them lazing around and interacting with visitors.

We saw this kangaroo near the picnic table

Lucky Bay

Lucky Bay beach is quite long (about 5km long) and wide. If you have a 4WD vehicle, you can drive on the beach. Just be mindful of people, especially kids, walking and playing on the beach.

There are two places two camp in Cape Le Grand National Park – Lucky Bay and Cape Le Grand campgrounds – both providing excellent camping facilities. There are flushing toilets, solar powered hot showers (really hot), sheltered kitchen (with bbq and gas stove), picnic tables and only a few minutes of walk to the beach. The good thing is that the sites can be booked (up to 180 days in advance) which guarantees you a spot. Keep in mind that you need to be fast enough to act if you are booking for popular seasons like Christmas-New Year break.

The view of the Lucky Bay from the car park

We prefer to camp in Cape Le Grand campground but we always visit Lucky Bay for a day to enrich our camping experience during our stay at the park. Lucky Bay also boasts the only one in the National Park beach café, which serves hot drinks and light meals on the beach.

After a swim in the turquoise waters, run on the white sand, lunch right on the beach and then a drive on the beach to enjoy the experience, we decided to visit a different beach in the park, hoping it would be less windy than Lucky Bay on that particular day.

Driving on Lucky Bay beach

Hellfire Bay

Our choice was excellent. Hellfire Bay was a lot quieter, both in number of people and the wind. Offering equally breathtaking views, this beach also had some rocky foreshore. This is where our older son Ariel found some crabs and we watched them having a feast while hiding under the rocks.

Crabs under the rocks in Hellfire Bay

Hellfire Bay has excellent picnic facilities with large tables in undercover sheltered area and clean bush toilets. After a quick afternoon tea there we decided to go for a walk to Little Hellfire, which was a pure delight.

The view over Hellfire Bay

Initially the path goes up the hill offering stunning views of the bay. Then it goes downhill and the vegetation gets richer and denser.

Little Hellfire walk

Eventually we reached large rocks among which this sheltered and calm beach is nestled.

Little Hellfire beach

Kids played for a while on the beach, while I occupied myself trying to take a picture of a red ant. It turned out to be a difficult task! The ant was running faster than my camera could keep a focus on it. This is the best shot (edited) I could get of it.

Little Hellfire walk

The flora at this part of the park is amazing. I was behind my family taking numerous pictures of the flowers… and more ants 😊.

Day 2: Esperance beaches and Stonehenge

Beaches and Stonehenge are two things you must visit when you are in Esperance.

While staying at Cape Le Grand National Park during our 9 day camping trip, we decided to visit Esperance. After filling gas and treating ourselves to local fish and chips, we had plenty of time to do sightseeing that day. First, we visited Stonehenge.

Stonehenge

Esperance Stonehenge is a full-size replica of the original UK Stonehenge and it appears as the UK version would have looked like around 1850BC.

Stonehenge replica in Esperance

It was built from 137 stones of Esperance pink granite quarried opposite the road where Stonehenge is rested.

Esperance Stonehenge was built to align with both Summer (22nd December) and Winter (21st June) Solstices in Western Australia. If you are lucky to have good weather, the owners actually open the place at 4am in summer to allow visitors experience this phenomenon.  

Esperance beaches

The beaches around Esperance are spectacular and easy to access via The Great Ocean Coastal Drive. It is a 40km coastal self-drive route encompassing a number of picturesque lookouts and parking bays.

Photo by our oldest son Ariel who discovered and taught us how to create 3×3 panoramic pictures.

You probably need a couple of days if you want to explore this area and explore all of the beaches and lookouts (plus Pink Lake and wind farm) along the route. Having only a  few hours at our disposable, we decided to visit only the most interesting places. Salmon Beach was the first of the beautiful beaches where we stopped.

Salmon Beach

Twighlight Beach is probably the most popular family beach located 10km from town centre. It is one of the safest and most beautiful beaches around Esperance.

Twighlight Beach

Twighlight Beach is equipped with picnic facilities, public toilets and also Shark Warning System!

Shark Warning System at Twightlight Beach

Ten Mile Lagoon is a fantastic swimming beach 19 km from town, particularly for young swimmers. A rocky shore separates a natural shallow and calm lagoon with much warmer waters from the breaking waves of the ocean.

Ten Mile Lagoon Beach

The lagoon is a perfect place not only for swimming, but also for snorkelling and admiring what the ocean shallow floor offers.

Ten Mile Lagoon

Going up the stairs back to the car I was admiring rugged pristine coastline…

Ten Mile Lagoon rugged coastline

Esperance is approximately 720km south east of Perth, on the Southern Ocean coastline in Western Australia.

Day 1: Frenchman Peak

Driving towards Frenchman Peak

Frenchman Peak is within Cape Le Grand National Park, which is 45 minutes drive east from Esperance, in the south east of Western Australia.

Frenchman Peak was discovered and named by surveyor Alexander Forrest in 1870 in search of a good country for pasture. The peak’s shape is quite unusual and very distinct, resembling the hats worn by French troops in the 1800s.

Cleaning the shoes before hiking to prevent spread of dieback disease

Hiking Frenchman Peak

We hiked this 262-meter mountain, which was quite an interesting experience. It started as an easy walk but quickly turned into quite a hard and challenging climb, the path consisting mainly of loose, bare rocks.

Climbing Frenchman Peak

Frenchman Peak hike is ranked Class 5.

It gets steeper as we climbed higher

Being quite a warm day, there were lots of flies, which ceased being a problem due to strong winds at the top of the mountain.

Having a break…

And now it’s time for a snack 😊.

SNACK TIME!!!

Cave

There was an interesting surprise near the summit – a large cave, which is thought to have formed by wave erosion and underwater currents some 40 million years ago when sea levels were about 300 meters above their current levels and the peaks of Cape Le Grand were submerged.

Amazing granite arch

Walking further around the cave, we discovered that there was another entrance to it.

Inside the cave

Getting closer to the walls of the cave we marvelled at the amazing rock formations.

From the cave it was only a short walk to the granite peak.

The view from the top

The views from the summit are magnificent. I felt a sense of an immense expanse and wonderment standing on the top, reflecting on how we, as human beings, are only tiny grains in this vast universe and so much of it is unknown to us. The desire to know and explore is what drives us on travelling adventures.

Are you ready to follow our adventures? On to Day 2 of our 9-day stay at Cape Le Grand.