Brisbane, QLD


Saturday, October 29, 2011

ON THE WAY TO ESPERANCE

From Kalgoorlie our tour bus took us south towards the sea port town of Esperance WA.
On the way we stopped at a lookout in West Kambalda. It looked over the salt pan Lake Lefroy. It was a pretty scene and reminded me of our visit to Lake Eyre.

 We were surrounded by a garden of wild flowers.

Woolly Feather Flowers


  An array of desert colours. We piled back into the bus and continued south stopping at Norseman for lunch and another lookout.

 Norseman Beacon lookout. Looking east towards the huge Nullarbor Plain. The name means no trees. It is a flat semi arid plain stretching 1,100 km west to east through WA and SA and covers 700,000 sq km. It is the largest single piece of limestone in the world.

 Esperance named after a French ship visiting here on an expedition in the early days. Now it is an important port transporting grain and ore.

From yet another lookout the southern coastline is dramatic, beautiful and very windy and cold. The wind blows off icy Antarctica.

 There were  different wild flowers surrounding the lookout.

 Their leaves are hard and waxy to protect them from the harsh coastal weather.

Rough Honeymyrtle

We braced ourselves against the cold wind to walk the famously long pier and to spot Sammy the resident seal. We didn't see Sammy or the end of the pier because it was too darn cold.

Our travel companions, Paul and Helen and a model of Skylab,
which crashed in Esperance.
Esperance was put on the world map when in 1979, pieces of the space station Skylab crashed onto Esperance after the craft broke up over the Indian Ocean. The municipality fined the United States $400 for littering. The fine was paid in April 2009, when radio show host Scott Barley of Highway Radio raised the funds from his morning show listeners, and paid the fine on behalf of NASA. Skylab's demise was an international media event, with merchandising, wagering on time and place of re-entry and nightly news reports. The San Francisco Examiner offered a $10,000 prize for the first piece of Skylab to be delivered to their offices. 17-year-old Stan Thornton scooped a few pieces of Skylab off the roof of his home in Esperance, Western Australia and caught the first flight to San Francisco, where he collected his prize. 

21 comments:

  1. beautiful desert photos. and i like the flowers. i like deserts but have never seen one.

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  2. Beautiful landscapes, Diane! The flowers are gorgeous as is the scenery. What a lovely trip and photos!

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  3. Such a lovely tour and nice places you've visited. Your photos and the scenery were beautiful there.

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  4. Such diverse landscapes you have seen! I love that fourth photo - a lovely view and the color is gorgeous.
    We have had pieces of space debris dropping a lot lately. This was very timely and interesting.
    Hope you're having a great weekend Diane.

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  5. That's a nice pier.

    Greetings,
    Filip

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  6. Well thanks Diane - I have often wondered where the name "Esperance" came from but was too lazy to research.
    I also didn't know it was an "export" port!
    However I did suspect that in winter it would be "brass monkey" weather with those icy winds from Antartica!
    Looks cold enough from your pier shots.
    Great blog.

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  7. What I like about your photos apart from their beauty is the scarcity of people.
    Not sure if 'scarcity' is actually a word.
    Just had to look it up. It is. You probably knew that already. :-)

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  8. Wow, it's absolutely beautiful in and surrounding Esperance. I had to google it to see if this place is anywhere near Adelaide where I'll be spending 5 months in the New Year. There's so much I'd love to see and do when I'm visiting your amazing country, maybe I should make it 6 months! ;-)

    Your photos are magnificent! Have a wonderful day!

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  9. Every pic makes me want to pack up NOW!! Love the red flowers - I believe the colloquial name is 'cocky's tongue', but happy to be corrected!!

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  10. I'm so enjoying joining this tour with you, lol! We never did make it to Esperance when we went round Oz, and your photos show it's a lovely spot.

    It's always amazing to me when I see the fabulous wildflowers that thrive is some of the harshest conditions. Loved the Honeymyrtle and those brilliant Featherflowers!

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  11. You traveled through some beautiful country on this leg of your journey. I don't like cold weather, so I can't blame you for not getting to the end of the pier. It's just too bad you didn't see Sammy.

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  12. Lovely Diane,
    Brings back memories. I do like in particular the 'desert colours'.

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  13. Love the desert and salt pan colours and as always ooo and ahhh over the flowers ... have been out shooting flowers this arvo myself. I always think the sea at the south is horrible and cold.

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  14. Great photo's, I will get to see it myself one day.

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  15. The salt pan area is just so beautiful with the pink and rusty red colourings - you have taken some fantastic shots Diane. My niece and her husband live on a farm just out of Esperance but I've never been there.

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  16. what a wonderful trip!
    amazing place, too.

    love the desert shots and the flowers are really stunning!

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  17. It's so beautiful and rugged and wild, must have been quite an experience visiting there. Once again, fantastic photos.

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  18. It's really great to see Australia through your eyes. Thanks for sharing the beautiful places you visit!

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  19. What a wild and beautiful place Kalgoorlie is, Diane! The wildflowers are amazing.

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  20. Hard to think of WA as cold and blustery. Much more like the weather in Tasmania. Some of your landscapes here remind me of the trip through the Kimberleys, especially the view from the lookout at Wyndham.

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  21. These are beautiful photos...Western Australia, right??

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