Esperance 2

Our first job of the day was to try and find warmer clothes & neither of us managed to ferret out anything from the car or Camper so we went to the shops. In keeping with the camper’s uniform Alex bought a druggie shirt but I didn’t manage to find anything so will just have to use layers. We walked around the old buildings beside the Museum, not solid stone buildings but weatherboard and corrugated iron. There is an old schoolhouse, church, railway station, hospital, doctor’s surgery etc. After a stop at the Coffee Shop which had an English theme with posters of Hillman cars and a selection of lollies like Fry’s Chocolate Bars & Dolly Mixtures, Yorkshire Tea etc we set off for the Arboretum. It’s about 15kms out of town and we’d seen it mentioned in relation to wild flowers but it’s like a forest with plots of different trees. The trees are all labelled but any wildflowers are interlopers so you just have to look out for them & find out for yourself what they are. Alex was good at spotting wildflowers but naming them isn’t in his skill set. This morning session must have been good training for him because late in the afternoon we went on part of the Kepwari Wetland Walk Trail & a lady coming out said there were orchids flowering so Alex became an Orchid-Spotting-Maniac.

The Great Ocean Drive was excellent with lots of viewing places to see the islands, rocks, surf and beaches. We could see water spouts from whales far out near the horizon, no seals or sea lions though. As we drove back into the town we saw that a tanker we’d seen lying off the harbour was being brought into Port so we sat and watched as the tugs manoeuvred it into position. Fine entertainment especially with commentary from a man sitting not far away, I think he was hoping for some kind of “incident”.

Tomorrow we expect to leave for Norseman.. There are long sections with nothing much to spark interest so we’ll probably keep going until we’re too tired to continue. People who came into the park today said there are places with fuel every couple of hundered kms. and plenty of places to camp so we’ll just see how we go.

Old Church, part of Museum display.

28 or Port LIncoln Parrot at the Arboretum.

Banksia

Orchid

View of rocks from Ocean Drive.

Tug and Tanker