Mercer Travels: Esperance to Albany.

Nullarbor crossing complete we looked for somewhere to stay that evening, heading south from Norseman you come to a small community run caravan park at a place called Salmon Gums. Arriving to find the place only occupied by one other caravan we parked up and got to know the neighbours, an older couple from NSW also doing the big lap although in slightly more refined transport to us in a Range Rover Sport.

Esperance was to be our destination the next day, just in time for the start of school holidays in WA so finding a campsite in the local National Parks was going to be difficult so we opted for a caravan park in town. The Seafront Holiday Park turned out to be a good pick, they gave us a site right next to the playground and looking over the ocean, having paid for 3 nights they held the spot for the 4th night in case we changed our minds which became the case. We spent most our time in town restocking supplies, lazing around and seeing the Lego Movie which was a highlight for the kids, now everything was awesome.

Esperance is a nice little town with a busy port precinct and the harbour front is undergoing major construction to improve the area even more, the mining companies around Norseman are funding much of the works. Not too far out of town you can visit Cape Le Grand National Park and on the way visit Stone Henge, that’s right someone has built a full size replica using granite of the original in the UK, seems it was commissioned for another town but due to money issues ended up staying near the quarry the stone was sourced at Esperance.

Back on the road to Cape Le Grand National Park, this area is known for its white sandy beaches which occasionally host Kangaroos laying in the sand, sadly we did not see any on our visit but the views made up for that and the drive back to Esperance along the beach made for an interesting finish to the trip.

Leaving Esperance behind and trying to avoid the holiday crowds we made our way west towards Ravensthorpe, spending a night in a rest stop off the highway the next day we made it to Wave Rock. Quite a sight seeing the wall of rock up close, 15m high and 110m in length it really is a sight to see, we also took a walk over the top and to another rock outcrop they refer to as the Hippos Yawn.

We now needed somewhere to stop for the night, again going off wikicamps we found the town of Kulin to be suitable for our needs, with the added bonus of a new swimming pool the kids could enjoy. The caravan park in Kulin is very new with only 11 sites and a youth hostel style lodgings. The town population is only around around 350 but is well known for both its annual horse race meeting and the quirky Tin Horse Highway. The Tin Horse Highway is an on going competition between some of the locals as too who can make the best depiction of a horse using mainly old oil drums, some have been quite inventive.

The centre of Kulin is also undergoing something of a revamp with new parkland area and an updated overnight rest stop for travellers, we would have stayed longer but the caravan park was fully booked for the upcoming long weekend so we had to move on.

We left Kulin taking the highway east past the Tin Horses, stopping for a look at another rock formation called Jilakin Rock, climbing to the top gave a good view over the race course and the surrounding wheat fields for which the area gains much of its employment. From here it was south to the town of Lake Grace, another town built on the back of the surrounding wheat farming but also the site of one of the first inland hospitals which we were lucky enough to have a quick look around, having any medical procedure done back in those days looked to have been a painful experience.

We did not want to go too much further south as the holiday crowds and associated peak park prices would still be around and so on a whim we made our way to Dumbleyung, mainly as the name sounded funny but there was a surprise. A quick stop at a Yabbie farm turned out to be quite an informative experience and after a quick tour we bought a few live ones to cook up that night, quite tasty they are too.

Just out from Dumbleyung there is a lake which has some unique history, back in 1964 Donald Campbell was trying to set a new world water speed record, due to issues with the original location the attempt was moved to Lake Dumbleyung. Now earlier in the year Donald had broken the world land speed record and he was keen to hold the two records in the same year, it took until 31st Dec for the conditions to be just right but the record was broken and 276.3mph was the new mark and both records were held.

Our place of refuge for the following few days was the town of Wagin, a fairly quiet place on a holiday weekend but we read books and took a few walks and drives around the town. Famous for its giant ram the town does not have much more than a couple of pubs and a supermarket. We got a tip there was a model air show at the airport so went over for a look, it was a Perth based club flying their various model planes and the police even turned up to speed trap the fast jets, one got to 327km/h which was impressive.

Easter Monday we made our move south, the holiday crowds would be thinning out, of course being us we did not go the direct route. First town was Katanning, then heading east we passed through Gnowangerup before stopping for lunch at Louis Lookout overlooking the Stirling Ranges National Park. Then it was south again driving through the ranges, if we had more fuel we would have stopped for the night but instead we kept moving and reached Albany. Now we had to find a place to stay, unfortunately holiday rates still applied so we checked in at the Big4 Middleton Beach for two nights at $62pn but this would be enough for our needs of collecting mail and a quick tour of the town.

Albany is a port city of around 34,000 people, they export grains & logs although in the early days whaling was a big part of the towns success. Close to the town is the Torndirrup National Park which has the natural attractions of The Gap and the Natural Bridge, as well as the Blowholes which are at the end of a nice walk although they only blow under certain swell conditions and the day we visited was not the best but you could hear the air gushing out of the rocks which was good.

In town you can see the replica of the brig Amity, this vessel sailed from Sydney in 1826 carrying a party under the command of Major Edmund Lockyer who had orders to form a settlement at King George Sound. It is a very good site for the kids to see as you can walk throughout the vessel and experience some of the hardships experienced by those early sailors.