lucky bay
Wow! Speechless! Our first taste of the west and by golly, our hearts had melted!
After our massive drive across The Nullarbor, we pulled into Esperance for a few nights to restock on food and fuel, and rest our travelling souls. Kepa Kurl is the Wudjari name for Esperance. ‘Kepa’ translates to water and 'kurl' to boomerang. Kepa Kurl means 'where the waters lie like boomerangs' which describes the bays perfectly. We spent three nights living like kings while getting accustomed to the new time zone! RAC Esperance Holiday Park was like a resort and right on the water! Just check out the camp kitchen and games room! The amenities block was another level, private shower rooms, perfect for washing and blow-drying hair! We were on Site 92 which was perfect! Easy to reverse onto, across the road from the ammenities and we had a spare grassy patch next to us so our warriors used it to kick a ball around. The pool overlooked the water and so did the epic children's playground. There is a coffee van that comes each day outside the caravan park which was rather popular. This caravan park can book out so be sure to book early to avoid disappointment.
We did venture out to explore the town and local beaches. The beach path into town allowed our warriors to dust off those bikes to go playground hopping and to visit the jetty. We visited Twilight Beach with the intention of rock jumping, but got way too distracted by the waves and colour of the water! Boy, we had been missing waves at this point! Plus with an incoming tide and a kazillion nippers below, it probably wasn’t going to be the safest bet! There are all the services that you need in Esperance including Bunnings, a major post office and a car wash large enough for vans called Eco Wash. Across the road is the town dump point. There is also caravan parking opposite the Woolworths which made life easier!
With well rested bodies, it was time to head to the highly anticipated Lucky Bay! This place was magic! We stayed at Lucky Bay Campground for three nights and fell deeply in love. It was one of those campgrounds that you really do need to jump on 180 days prior to secure yourself a site. The sites here are unallocated so we found rocking up not long after 10am (checkout time) gave us the best chance of snagging a great site. Site 4 was our home for the duration of our stay and we weren't complaining. It had distant water views and was surrounded by shrubs which gave us some protection from the wind. There is no Telstra service, but scattered Optus service. The ammenities were unreal here! Great camp kitchens, warm showers and clean toilets, the best we have seen for a national park! We had sunny, windy, overcast and rainy weather. We secretly loved having our first rainy day of our trip, especially after having our hottest summer holiday ever! We snuggled in bed as we listened to the sound of the rain on the roof in the morning. We watched the white caps from our window and sipped on hot choccies. We read our books, baked cakes and filled our bellies with homely coconut curries. The ocean was a mixture of navy blue and turquoise tones, contrasting with the whitest of sand and the grey clouds. The sunshine then came out later in our stay and gave it all another dimension! Everything sparkled even more and that crystal clear water stole our hearts!
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Everywhere you go in this national park is stunning regardless of the weather. We visited all of the famous beaches including Wharton Beach, Hellfire Bay, Little Hellfire Bay and Thistle Bay. We climbed Mandooboornup, Frenchman’s Peak, which was an absolute feat on its own (Grade 5), then add some wind gusts just to keep you feeling alive! During our stay we saw dolphins, tiger sharks and the famous kangaroos, both on the beach during our sunrise walk and hanging outside our van at brekkie time. The banksia here were stunning and gave us a sense of home.
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The best part of all was our downtime as a family. We celebrated a special milestone, our eldest turning thirteen! In typical teenager style, his day was spent having Pop Tarts for brekkie, dino nuggies for lunch and a bbq dinner with potato bake for dinner! The fuel he needed to beach hop during the day. He also challenged us to bake him a plane cake on the rainy day before his birthday. We were quite proud of our efforts! Another special memory was watching our youngest warrior catch his first wave on a mini mal at Wharton Beach. The board is twice the size of him but that didn't faze him. We couldn't stop him after that, and why would you when you had the whole of Wharton Beach to yourself!
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You do require a National Parks Pass so if you are planning on visiting a few parks during your time in Western Australia, it would be beneficial to purchase the annual pass. A hot tip for when you’re buying a National Parks Pass for Western Australia is to first become an individual member with WA Parks Foundation who is an independent, not-for-profit company that promotes the conservation of Western Australia’s national parks. With the membership, you receive 50% all parks pass and a heap of discounts for tour operators! Not only will it save you a few dollars towards your pass, but it also goes towards a not-for-profit organisation that helps in caring for these stunning natural parks that cover more than 31 million hectares of both terrestrial and marine parks, including three World Heritage areas! Be sure to have your national parks pass printed to display on your dashboard too.
We left Lucky Bay with full hearts and grateful to have stayed at such an incredible place. We know this place will lure us back, it was that kind of special! However, the time had come to head inland for a few nights to visit Wave Rock.
Peace + love,
We left Lucky Bay with full hearts and grateful to have stayed at such an incredible place. We know this place will lure us back, it was that kind of special! However, the time had come to head inland for a few nights to visit Wave Rock.
Peace + love,