Its been a quiet few days....

Leaving Albany we travelled east along the coastal highway, although they call it that it actually runs many miles inland at some points. We had decided to spend the night in a little town called Hopetoun, (a Scottish influence there?) on the coast and about 50kms away from the highway. We had a grotty little cabin for the night in the caravan park there, where the owner was so laid back he was horizontal, but we survived.

We had hoped to go into Fitzgerald River national park from there, but found most of it closed, either for repairs or because of a fire. But we did manage to see a few of the glorious beaches along Hammersley Drive, I know I have said this before but the beaches around here are among the best in the world, and most are totally uninhabited. The only problem is that they are also among the most windswept in the world! The wind comes off the Southern Ocean, next stop Antarctica several thousand miles away, maybe that's why they are totally uninhabited!

Next stop Esperance, where we managed to get into a delightful apartment where we stayed when we were here three years ago with David and Mildred. The town is really lovely, with an esplanade lined with pine trees, the town itself is very clean and tidy with many small shops lining the main street.

It has an excellent museum. We have seen many museums in the past few months, all of them good in their own ways, but this is one of the best. They have an exhibit about the first Skylab that fell to earth here in 1979 after circumnavigating the earth 24.000 times in the six years it was in orbit.
Hundreds of other exhibits are in an old railway shed, including a steam railway engine that brought gold and passengers down to Esperance from the Kalgourlie goldfields for many years.









We are waiting here for two reasons, one good and one not so good. The good reason is that Lee and Karen and the children will join us here before we go into the Cape Le Grande national park tomorrow, and then onwards across the Nullarbor. The not so good one is that I have to visit a dentist this afternoon, I have lost part of a tooth and the next opportunity I will have to get it seen to will be after the New year.
Pray for me.....
This evening I have been to Esperance Rotary club, a single gender club, where I met a member who had recently been to Kirkby Sephen, where he stayed with a member of Upper Eden club, Fred Hayler. Fred is over here at the moment, and will no doubt visit the club in the next few weeks.
They are a very busy club, fifty years old, who have recently published a book on their achievements in that period which makes very interesting reading. I enjoyed excellent fellowship with them and enjoyed an interesting presentation from the headmaster of a local private school.