Sat 2 Nov 2013 - Bogged in Cape Le Grande National Park!

We got up at 5.30am to try for surf again, but it's still overcast and blowing a  Southerly. After some breakfast, we went to Cape Le Grande National Park, which is 54 Kms East of Esperance.

On the way, we passed a farm where there is a replica of Stonehenge! It's all made of stone and an exact copy of how Stonehenge would have looked if it was new. The farmer charges people $10.00 each to look round it, and has built a fence, so it can't be seen from the road. We discovered we could see it from the junction of the road and his driveway though, so Rodger, terribly discreetly, climbed on the roof of our car to take a photo. Not surprisingly, the farmer noticed and started shouting and waving at him, but it was too late, the photo was taken!

The National Park is on the coast and has the most beautiful beaches we have seen anywhere in Australia. 

The sand is really white and the water, even on an overcast day, bright turquoise and azure. We visited a couple of beaches, pretty little bays, and then climbed Frenchman Peak. The path that led there was through heathland and there were lots of wild flowers, some that we'd seen before and some new ones.

The peak itself was virtually bare rock and the path went up almost vertically and was quite scary, as there was nothing to hang onto and it was very windy, it was certainly a good workout for my new walking sandals! We managed to get to the top, and on one side there was a cave that was very sheltered from the wind. Coming down wasn't as bad as I'd expected and we did the whole thing in about an hour and a half - we haven't had such a workout since we left the gorges!

Mel climbing about half was up!

Mel coming down the lower section

 Our next call was Lucky Bay and we were amazed to find a coffee van on this remote beach. We felt we had earned a cuppa, so we sat and admired the view, sipping our drinks and chatting to the owners, an Aboriginal father and daughter. 

Teagan makes great coffees and wants to expand her business here.

They told us it's ok to drive on the beach and that the little beaches in the distance were worth seeing. Rodger didn't need to be told twice, he's been dying to have a go of driving on the sand. We set off and went well, until Rodger went into the dry sand to avoid a slippery patch and then we got completely bogged, with sand right up to the base of the car.

Well at least it was light, the tide wasn't coming up fast and we were bogged in clean sand, rather than mud! We got out a folding spade that we'd bought for just this sort of emergency, and dug out the wheels and Rodger let the tyres down a lot. We stamped down the sand around the wheels, asked God for his help and then Rodger started the engine. I went round to the front to give a big push, but before I got there, Rodger drove straight out! We were very thankful and stayed on the wet sand after that!

 We got back to town in time to look round the little museum. It had amazing collections of all sorts of things, but it's main feature was the pieces that fell out of the sky when Skylab disintegrated in 1979 and rained down debris onto the Nullabor. Luckily nobody was hurt and no property damaged. The Australian Government charged USA $400 for littering – which they didn’t pay for 30 years!  The museum also had trains and cars from the early days.

 As the sun went down, it turned very cold, with a wind straight off the Antarctic, looks like we'll be getting the trackies out again soon!