Part 2!
The weather for our week away hadn’t been perfect, some cloud and rain, a fair amount of wind but Wednesday was supposed to be bright and sunny so this is the day we chose to go to Cape Le Grande National Park and explore the beaches there. Some of which have been voted the most beautiful beaches in the world! 🌎
Well I can completely understand why! Totally gorgeous.
We visited Hellfire Bay first, which I thought was very pretty, small but lovely.
Then onto Lucky Bay. Lucky Bay was much bigger and again vehicles can drive onto the beach. It is fantastic and so pretty. Quite often Kangaroos come on the beach! Cory & Charlotte, my friends saw them when they visited. You can see this on their travel blog: ‘CJ explores’.
Sadly we didn’t see any, but it was a busy day, quite a few people and vehicles and it wasn’t dawn or dusk.
We set up our little awning, chairs, Eski and preceded to have a fabulous beach day, we swam in the gorgeous water, saw fish. 🐠 No Sharks despite the signs!
It was glorious. ❤️
I took lots of photos of all the beaches but I don’t think they do them justice.
I would have to say that my favourite beach in Esperence was Wharton Beach.
We had a lovely relaxed final day on Thursday despite the drizzle and wind!
Then it was time to start packing up for our return home on Friday.
You can simply run out of superlatives to describe the beaches in this part of the world. Suffice to say they are the cleanest most pristine beaches I have ever seen in my life. 🤍🩵💙🌎 simply breathtaking.
Esperence will always have a special place in my heart.
The drive home is always less fun than the drive to your holiday.
I offered to do the first couple of hours, get it out of the way.
Everything was going great guns, the roads were virtually empty, no road trains. We were about 15 mins away from our first stop when we drove past a large truck, we heard a bang, but we all assumed it was something to do with the lorry. I continued to drive, then the battery Light came on on the dashboard and just as we came into the little town the Ute started to lose power. I pulled into the first garage I came to in the small town of Ravensthorpe.
Chris had a look and it looked like the coolant had all gone, so possibly a leak 🤔🤷♀️
Chris asked in the garage and they said there was a mechanics place just further up the road. We managed to drive the Ute there. The mechanics looked at it and declared it a little bit fucked! 😳
It seems that the bang we heard was the alternator breaking, this then took out the fan, disconnecting stuff and causing overheating. The vehicle was no longer drivable.
This was Friday @10am the last weekend before Christmas, the garage and mechanics were just about to close for their Christmas trip to Perth.
Chris called to RAC, paid to have roadside assistance. They said they would try to organise a tow.
They called back and said that as there were 4 people the earliest they could get a tow with a large enough cab would be Tuesday, 4 days away! WTAF! 😱
As we were in the middle of nowhere we ended up having to organise a tow truck from Bunbury, a 6 hour drive away, to come and get us. They couldn’t get to us till the following day and it wasn’t cheap!
At this point we were all being pretty calm and philosophical about the whole thing. We managed to find rooms at the local Motel. We walked there then the very nice owner, Rama, drove us back to the vehicle to collect all of our stuff.
Now to entertain ourselves in the tiny little town of Ravensthorpe.
A few of the cafés were closed, or just a bit weird!
But as luck would have it the local Tavern was open for business at Midday! Hooray 🎉
So that’s where we settled for the afternoon, we had some food, played pool. Then we played darts, which I was absolutely shocking at! 😂😜 Although after a few hours I did actually win 1 game….more luck than anything else.
Then in the evening as we were sitting outside of our motel rooms we spotted Kangaroos over the road! 🦘 Result. ❤️
The next morning reality hit a little, costs, the inconvenience of not having the Ute, a 7 hour drive home in the back of a tow truck!! Everyone was a little subdued.
‘Wingers’ the tow truck driver arrived like a knight in Shining Armour at 10.30, which was a lot earlier than I’d anticipated. He was so helpful and friendly. He made the journey back much more pleasant than I thought it would be, bumpy in the back but again, he made great time and it took us under 7 hours to get back, helped by the lack of vehicles and road trains.
The Ute is now in the garage, we are hoping it’s fixable and that the head gasket hasn’t gone 🙏🙏
it’s fair to say the Esperence Holiday was one we won’t forget for a while for lots of reasons!
We made it back with enough time to organise for Christmas.
It still feels very strange celebrating Christmas in the sun! Not getting wrapped up and drinking mulled wine.
On Monday evening Chris asked if we wanted to go for a drive to look at the Christmas lights. Anita and I said, absolutely 💯. We had no idea what we were in for!
There were some stunning displays around the streets nearby, but this was nothing compared to the spectacle that is Dunstan Street! A whole long curved street with every single house lit up in the most fabulous way. It was so mad! They even had traffic management in place. We walked the whole thing and it was incredible. Apparently if you buy a house on this street you have to agree to do Christmas lights! Bonkers, but amazing and really got us in the Christmas mood. 🎄🎉
On Christmas Eve friends of Rebecca & Chris, Mick & Debs, came over. Mick had very kindly looked after Curly while we were away.
We had a lovely evening, BBQ, nice food, some Aperol Spritz, sitting outside and playing board games!
Christmas Day was very Australian 🇦🇺. We started with breakfast on the beach 🏖️ Making use of the public BBQs by the bay, with some Mimosas, a little stroll, then back to the house for presents and relaxing by the pool! Bloody lush.
I will admit to feeling homesick and certainly missing seeing my beautiful Twinkles, Georgia & Grantley. We face timed which was wonderful, but not the same as seeing them in the flesh. But it is the first Christmas I’ve spent with my Rebecca in 11 years, so that is wonderful. 😍
We had a lovely walk around the inlet on Boxing Day and then Chris managed to find a way for us to watch Gavin & Stacy on the outside TV, so we sat outside eating cheese and watched the end of an era, a fantastic end to a great series. We cried. 😭😭❤️
One of the most exciting and amazing things that has happened since my last blog post is that I’m now going to have some company when I visit Sri Lanka.
The bloody fabulous and amazing Tracey Whelan is going to come over and we’ll get to spend 10 days together! I’m so thrilled and happy! ❤️😍🎉
Apologies in advance for the number of stunning beach pictures that will accompany this post! 💙🩵
Enjoy the weekend, it’s that strange time between Christmas & New year when nobody really knows what day of the week it is, everyone is living on leftovers, cheese and chocolate and wondering if not fitting into your clothes is a legitimate reason to call in sick to work! 😂😂😂
That’s all for now you fabulous bunch.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, it’s not always the easiest of times. I know it’s been a particularly difficult one for some of my wonderful friends. Please know that I’m thinking of you and sending all my love. ❤️❤️
Books Read.
The Echo of Old Books. Barbara Davis.
Really enjoyable.
Tall Oaks. Chris Whitaker.
I loved this book, it managed to be thrilling, sad, poignant and very funny. The author is British and I shall be reading more of his stuff.
Wild. Kristin Hannah.
Another sensational book by this author. I really loved this one. If you haven’t read any of her books, start now!
36 Hours. Angela Marsons. Book 21 in the DI Stone Series.
Very good.
Hereandthereclaire.com 