Esperance

Esperence is a pretty seaside town, of between 10,000 - 12000 people and a few more living in the outlying areas. Evidently, quite a number of farmers live in the town tho' and travel out to farms for work.

Foreshore of Esperence - complete with the traditional row of Norfolk Island pines.

The first day we were there, the weather was superb. However, the next day was just 'okay' with a building breeze and a bit overcast. Following that the "rot set in" and we had howling winds and rain! Don't you just love the southern, coastal conditions of this country - especially during the changable weather patterns of Spring??

(we've now had many more cooler, breezier days than warm sunny ones for quite some time!! - Take me back to Broome!)

Esperence has one of the nicest coastal tourist drives in the country, just to the west of the town, and we were lucky enough to strike the 'perfect' day to see it. With names like Turquoise Bay and Twilight Bay, how could it be anything else but paradise! I think there are 16 beaches in the local area that just go from one, to the next looking picture perfect.

...And the water was really as blue as it looks in the photos!

Jed trying to frame a rock formation.

Esperence also has a very active museum group, which shows in the development of the museum over a number of generations, the extent of the collectables, the way in which it is set out and the information contained about the town. A great way to spend an hour or so. (Even the kids, were happy for a while!)

One of the features of the museum, is the district's brush with NASA. As a 12 year old, I remember all the hype ... SKYLAB was going to crash down to Earth, from space! They predicted it most probably  would land in the Indian Ocean off WA somewhere, or ... it could be over land somewhere in southern WA . ( I was sure it was going to be on my head!!)
The 'maybe' turned out to be correct and on July 12th 1979, as the space station started to break up upon reentering the Earth's atmosphere, it left a trail of space junk over Esperence, among other places.
It slammed back to Earth near Balladonia, north east of Esperence on the Eyre Highway. Some of the pieces were 'rather large' and would have given someone a mighty headache (?!) had it landed on them.
It is stated that the local district 'powers that be' fine NASA $400 for littering! Which they paid.

Model of Skylab outside the Esperence Museum.

We also had another nice 'social encounter' while in Esperence. While in Broome we attended church and got talking to this guy who was travelling on his motorbike, from Esperence. He gave us his 'card', and invited us to 'catch-up' in Esperence. Jon gave him a ring when we arrived, after initially being away on the Nullabor fighting fires (he works for CALM), he rang us back and we spent a pleasant couple of hours with John and his wife, Stephanie at their home. They had only lived in Esperence for about 18 months, but were very active within the community and knew lots interesting "stuff" to tell us about. It's always nice to get some 'insider knowledge' of a place.
PS we really enjoyed Stephanie's cup cakes!