Esperance is like Port Lincoln. Both are industrial ports but instead of fishing and farm products, Esperance deals with farm products and mined ore. Nickel, lithium and iron mostly. Our tour guide said about 99% of the farm products go to Asian countries.
It was a bouncy tender ride from the ship. What jumped out as we walked to the buses was a completely out of place clock tower. It belongs in some New England town center, not by a pier surrounded by warehouses.
Our bus tour started at the visitor center and “old town”. Not the original Esperance buildings, but original buildings from the surrounding towns and outback. Here they are a reminder of the 1800s while serving as small shops – general store, photography studio, even a knitting store. And old church is now a museum. We started at a cafe for drinks and snacks and wandered around.
Seeing the knitting store helped me understand why the concrete traffic pillars were wearing sweaters.
As we traveled to our next stop our guide mentioned that the Esperance area had 15,000 people in an area about the size of Denmark, a country of six million. They have a bunch of open spaces here.
Tanker Jetty is now a nice waterside park. It was the original pier to load and unload bulk cargo. It’s such a big deal for the locals they have a statue.
Our guide said originally the jetty went a kilometer into the harbor. Our ship could have docked.
I did see an unusual flowering bush nearby. I have no idea what it is. [Week later edit – it’s a Banksia]
According to our guide, only recently has tourism become a thing in Esperance. Yesterday at the visitor center over 250 people came from 19 countries, six continents and all six Australian states. It’s gotten to the point where there are no hotel rooms nor caravan (camper) spaces from May to September.
Much of the reason for the tourism is to the west of the town – fantastic beaches. West, Blue, Salmon, Fourth and Twilight were the ones he named. Take care about the rip tides, but wonderful sand. Since I was raised in a Navy family, I’m kind of used to it.
However, what makes this different from everywhere else is the view looking the other way.
After enjoying the beach we went to Pink Lake. Which was neither. According to the signs the weather, temperature and salinity have to be just right for the algae to go crazy and turn pink. If they say so. The sign did have a pink lake picture from the 1970s.
Here ends my first visit to the southern coast of Australia. For the Aussie summer, I enjoyed the climate. We turn the south-western corner and head north, so I expect it to get a bit warmer.