How often do we miss sights in our own "backyard"? While it's nice to travel to exotic places to sample different environments, there are often many treasures in our own country or state. One such place is Lucky Bay in southern Western Australia, about an eight-hour drive from Perth.
The bay is located in Cape Le Grand National Park, which is 20 miles from the town of Esperance. The whole area features unspoiled beauty. We decided to go and do some hiking, and our first stop was Frenchman Peak. There are several granite peaks that you couldn't say are mountains—only 300 metres high-—but they are steep and striking. It makes them appear like mountains from a distance.
We started on our climb, initially on a gentle path, and then hit the rock face. As we continued to climb up, the hard part was not so much the climb but looking back at what the descent would look like.
We then headed for the coastal part of the National Park and came to Lucky Bay. This had to be the most beautiful beach we had ever seen. The sand was pure white, and the aqua and turquoise colouration of the water was stunning. The beach is long and wide with a very gentle slope and protected from dumping waves. It was too bad that we were there in the cooler part of the year, otherwise, we would have gone into the water.
Those black and orange wisps on the beach are nothing more than seaweed.
This is a must-see for anyone who loves the pristine beauty of the outdoors. We put it at the top of the list of coastal spots in Western Australia.
One bit of trivia about this area is that an American television personality from the 1950s, Art Linkletter, was interested in the area.
Those old enough will remember Linkletter's TV program, "Kids Say The Darnest Things". Linkletter headed up a syndicate that bought land in the area to develop an agricultural industry. Unfortunately, it didn't succeed and was turned into forest land. Now it has been redeveloped once again to grow crops.
Not likely to run into him at Lucky Bay.
Well! You got me on a deep dive in the map. So does Route 1 go all the way around the perimeter? I tried to map a route all the way around and in my rudimentary calculation - looks like it would take 135 hours to get all the way around Australia (straight driving so that’s unlikely) - so many parks and bush land. Some towns say there’s no marked road to get there along the NW corner! Is that true?