Esperance

Esperance has many of the same qualities of Port Lincoln, in fact you could describe it as Pot Lincoln Lite. I can see that not many of you have read the second entry of my Port Lincoln blog so I will tell you what you've missed (no not really I can't be bothered). Suffice it to say that Esperance is a really nice town. It's the Queen's birthday weekend and most of the town is shut which is a shame. It does however abound in natural beauty and you can't shut that. It has no building taller than 3 stories, the natives are friendly and has had excellent weather so far. Well worth the visit.

I was a bit weary from my 9 hours in the car so I fell into bed and slept for a similar number of hours. It did have the one advantage of getting me into Western Australian time. It's 6.00pm here but 8.00pm at home.

As you can see the view from my window is awful. It only got worse from here on. After breakfast I headed for the foreshore for a stroll and to get some fresh air. There was a 3.5 kilometres round trip walk that took in the local Tanker Jetty some 800 metres long in itself. Two interesting things came from that walk. Firstly I met some ex Muswellbrook natives Daniel and Joanne, a brother and sister travelling across the Nullarbor to Brisbane. Apparently their mum was the community nurse and their dad used to own Pizza Power.

You can run but you can't hide. Just below them in the water was this lovely creature.

Sammy the Sea Lion is quite the famous local son. He swims around the jetty and waits for fisherman to clean their fish and throw him their scraps. He was just hanging around amusing we tourists. Sadly no one seemed to be catching any fish but being a good sea lion he hung around and kept us entertained anyway.

I have to say what a nice change it is to be somewhere the fun police haven't tried to ruin yet. Guess what? Instead of the jetty having a sign saying, no fishing, no swimming, no diving, no bombing, no running, no fun of any kind whatsoever in any way shape of form no, no, no, no, no!!!!! They actually provided somewhere to clean your fish, and put the waste. There was a pontoon with a slippery dip on it so if you wanted to swim out to it and play by the jetty that was ok too. There was somewhere to launch your boat and somewhere else to make it easier for you to board said boat. They actually wanted you to enjoy your day. How positively refreshing. To top it all off there was a coffee cart that had people hanging from the rafters it was so popular. The coffee cart, and I kid you not, had a buzzer system for you to come back and collect your coffee. They were that busy. Suffice it to say it made for a great way to start the day.

It wasn't all beer and skittles however, I tried to go on an island cruise. Let me explain. Esperance is also known as the Bay of Isles. There is something like 105 islands plus another 1200 hazards to shipping just out from the town. It makes for some very beguiling scenery but it must have been murderous to try and drive a sailing vessel in these waters. I tried to book a half day cruise to see some of the local scenery from the water. They weren't running them as it was a public holiday. Esperance was however teeming with people all trying to spend their money, nearly everywhere was closed, but the places that stayed open where pumping.

As you can see from the photos it's not a particularly attractive place but I had to put my head down somewhere. I took a drive around the coastline stopping to view some of the indifferent scenery. There are two national parks within 50 kilometres of the town and I'm told that its one of the few places in Australia where you get to see Kangaroos on the beach. I was going to head to one of these but I was that exhausted from my day in the car I opted instead for that most pedestrian of activities and went and flopped into a seat at the movies. Hey we don't have a cinema in Muswellbrook so don't criticise (and by the way The Avengers was great).

From there it was on to the Esperance Municipal Museum, I was wasn't expecting much but it was excellent. The reason for my visit was to see their Skylab collection. Back in 1979 a seventy tonne space station came crashing back to earth early. Forty of those tonnes didn't break up on re entry and much of what made it through the atmosphere ended up in this part of Western Australia, the rest ended up in the Indian Ocean. The fact that no one was hurt or killed is a miracle. NASA at the time thought that they would get it to drop harmlessly into the ocean. They were wrong. 

Well what can I tell you but pieces of space junk are quite boring to look at. There are however a number of interesting stories relating to it. Firstly I have to say how big of a news item it was at the time. We knew well in advance that it was going to crash, just nobody could guarantee where. My favourite party trick back then was to walk around with an ice cream container on my head on which I'd written "Skylab Helmet". What can I say but they were simpler times. NASA was also very cool about it. They sent back to the fossickers all the bits that were found with waivers saying NASA no longer had any claim on the bits plus they included verification that they were real and in many cases they had them mounted onto plaques with engraved descriptions attached. Further to all of that they also donated the model of Skylab (pictured above) to the local museum. President Jimmy Carter even rang the Balladonia Roadhouse to apologise for crashing his satellite in their region. When was the last time an American president showed that much humility?


My very favourite Skylab story though is however the one about a Ranger from Esperance Shire Council giving NASA a $400.00 penalty notice for littering. It was one thing the museum didn't seem to have, surely the council can get the copy out of their archives and put it in display? What a beautifully laconic Australian response. 


Tomorrow I head to Albany about 480 kilometres away. It had Australia's last active whaling station and was a fabulous place to visit when I last visited in 1992. Looking forward to it.