Sunrise at Cape Le Grand National Park is opposite to where the sun sets. So, it rises over the hills. This is where we went to greet a new day, new beginning. It is the last day for us at the campsite and is the time to pack. Cape Le Grand campground was a lovely home for us for 9 days but now it is time to leave.
Sunrise at Cape Le Grand on the last say is also the time for reflections. Brian got up at 5am and disappeared from the caravan. He came back with photos and a story to tell.
“Another day. A new dawn. A new year (2021) is fast approaching. The current (2020) year has been plagued with calamities affecting so many around the world. Not to mention the lifestyles change that will see us doing things differently. Hopefully, we come as one to make a better world.
Our home at Cape Le Grand
As I walk down the beach in the early morning, I breathe the fresh air, reflect on my life and hear the rolling waves. The cold air breezes through my ears and I feel the cold, so l know l am still ticking. We will depart today to another destination after breakfast. Have a wonderful good morning to all and especially a new year to you all. “
Morning at Cape Le Grand
Ariel managed to find another beautiful colourful beetle for me to photograph when we went to wash hands.
Good bye beloved Cape Le Grand! We’ll be back again!
Sunsets at Cape Le Grand National park are amazing and the beach is the best place to watch them. It is our last full day at Cape Le Grand and we decided to take it easy, not go anywhere and have proper meals at the camp. Campground facilities at Cape Le Grand beach have been upgraded recently, so we enjoyed nice and clean sheltered undercover kitchen where we washed our dishes daily with hot water. Bring your rubber gloves, as water in the kitchen is really hot!
Cape Le Grand campground facilities
We spent the day walking on the beach where the white sand squeaks under your feet, observing waves rolling and dispersing into the air when the wind was strong, and spotting seagulls and other birds fly across the sky.
Photographing flowers and insects was another past time.
The kids ran on the beach and played in the sand.
The evening meal was served inside our caravan where we could hide from the strong wind and feel cozier.
Inside our caravan
Being on the western side of Western Australia means you can see amazingly beautiful sunset at Cape Le Grand.
Not only sunsets are different every day, but they are different every minute of the day as it gets to its end. The time after the sun goes down is particularly magical when the beautiful colours appear in the sky.
Thistle Cove is a small picturesque bay in Cape Le Grand National Park near Esperance on the Southern Ocean coastline in Western Australia.
We visited Thistle Cove as part of our 9 day stay at Cape Le Grand. On day 7, nice beautiful day with sun shining and temperature in low 20s, we decided to go hiking. We drove to Thistle Cove and decided to hike from there to Lucky Bay. This proved to be one of the best places in Cape Le Grand National Park. The place is so rich in history, natural coastal beauty, diversity of plants. It is a paradise.
Local history
It was named Thistle Cove by Captain Matthew Flinders who, while surveying this area in 1802, found much needed fresh water. He decided to name the place after the ship’s master John Thistle. These freshwater sources were also important to traditional Aboriginal people who camped here during seasonal journeys to and from the coast. Thistle Cove, as well as Frenchman Peak, is part of Aboriginal Dreaming Story. According to Nyungar Aboriginal People, when the wind blows amongst the rocks you may hear ancestors crying for their two children who were carried out to sea by mother walich, the eagle. She was angry that the children had stolen her eggs, disobeying their parents and elders. Every time the children tried to swim back to the shore, their mother walich picked them up and carried back to the sea. This story teaches children a very good lesson.
A good lesson to learn
Whistling Rock
Another attraction there is Whistling Rock. It is an interestingly nature sculptured granite boulder that captures the sound of the wind and it actually whistles!
The walk from Thistle Cove to Lucky Bay is an easy (Class 3) 1 hour walk (one way). It offers stunning views of the bay. At some high points you can see Thistle Cove, Lucky Bay and other bays at the same time. It is a beautiful place to visit.
What a better way to spend Christmas than at one of the best beaches – Cape Le Grand beach! Christmas Day is the time to spend with the family. Well, on that day, waves, sun, sand and seagulls became our family 😊.
Cape Le Grand beach
We started the day by exchanging Christmas presents and then spent the whole day at the beach.
Merry Xmas from Travel Nut family! 🙂
While we were having our morning tea we had a visitor at our place. This Monitor Lizard was very friendly and quite relaxed about people. It let me take a number of shots.
Monitor Lizard at Cape Le Grand camp ground – a local resident 🙂
Christmas Day was the only hot day during our 9 day stay at Cape Le Grand. The temperature hit 40 degrees and while the water was a bit cold, it was so refreshing to swim in the beautiful water on such a hot day.
The kids entertained themselves with digging the sand, building castles and tunnels, and jumping over little waves while I was practising my photography skills.
A lot of 4WDs were passing by and a few boats were launched off the coast.
Cape Le Grand beach
A hot day meant lots of flies. We decided to have lunch inside our caravan where the temperature was 48 degrees! Still, it was better than fighting flies.
Hiding from the flies inside our caravan on a hot Christmas Day
With the air cooling at night, it was very comfortable to sleep.
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.
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.
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 😊.
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.
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