[Photos] Esperance (pt. II) - Cape le Grand National Park

[moonvoice]

Cape le Grand is a region in Western Australia which has remained unglaciated and above sea level for over 200 million years. It is home to many primitive, relict species, and is managed by DPAW - the Department of Parks and Wildlife (which previously was Department of Conservation DeC), and before that, Conservation and Land Management (CALM) - let's see how many more name changes the dept. goes through in my lifetime).

The name le Grand comes from an officer on l'Esperance, a ship in the 1792 expedition: Bruni d'Entrecasteaux.











Service road



Kwongan



Lechenaultia



Lechenaultia up close.



They are stupidly bright. Some of you may recall I've had this in my garden, lol.



The roads are generally pink, due to an abundance of pink granite in the region (and when I put up photos of Esperance's replica stonehenge, you'll see a lot more of that pink granite)



Frenchman's Peak





Water reflecting off Frenchman's Peak



My mood took a major dive around here, so we stopped for a while and I munched on some almonds, which helped my mood a bit.





Lucky Bay





The right, on the shore, you can see two Western Grey Kangaroos. This was my first time seeing kangaroos on the beach. :)



The sand was even whiter than this in person. And so fine that your feet make high pitched squeaking noises as you walk.



Kangaroo tracks

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

How lovely!

[moonvoice]

Thank you! :D

[feralkiss]

Gorgeous area!

[moonvoice]

It really is, I have more to share *blush*, but I'll try and stagger everything.

[skyfiery]

These are beautiful pictures. I especially love the picture of Lucky Bay. :)

[moonvoice]

Lucky Bay is lovely. I have some more beach shots of Esperance coming up, and the sands there were just absurdly gorgeous. :)

[silverjackal]

Kangaroo tracks! This delights the naturalist in my greatly, as much as seeing the animals themselves. I also really love the photos showing the land as a whole -- even at this remove one can appreciate how incredibly diverse the flora is. Thank you for sharing them!

[moonvoice]

The kangaroo tracks were fun to get, those big claws on their largest toe! They were moving a bit faster than normal as well, because well - we were there - and they weren't habituated like a lot of local kangaroos are. :D

[leecetheartist]

Did you get to Woody Island?

We stayed there and it was awesome!

[moonvoice]

Alas no, we were only there for 3 days - and two of those days were the 6.5 hour drive in, and one of those days was a 7.5 hour drive out. The prices would have been untenable as well, unfortunately. I just don't have the health/finances to do a lot of things I'd like to do these days. But I'm glad we got to see as much of Esperance as we did. Especially considering I was so ill while I was there.

[leecetheartist]

We were on long service leave so we made it one of our first stops, but we did the drive there in two stages, staying at a friend's in Wagin for a bit before we got to Esperance.

We said to each other afterwards, that the plane flight down might be the way to go next time. It was a long drive even so...