To Esperance

Our little portable oven worked overtime with baking of bacon rolls, cheese straws and Christmas dinner of chicken stuffed with veal and pistachio. We joined two Dutch couples for some Christmas cheer but otherwise it was fairly quiet. We managed to visit a few more beaches in the Albany area over the week and left for Ravensthorpe on the 29th.
This was a quiet village with not much going on and the shops closed on public holidays. We did take a drive down to Hopetoun which is quite a pretty holiday destination 50km distant. Ravensthorpe while theoretically having digital service did not meet this expectation so we had four days of silence. New Year's Eve was totally silent so we just drank our bubbles and went to bed.

We left for Esperance on the 2nd January at 7am in order to miss expected road train traffic. There had been a serious bush fire on the Eastern Highway so all traffic between Kalgoorlie and Perth was routed via Esperance. Luckily we had guessed correctly and did not strike anything going our way.

Esperance is a busy little town with a port used for transporting ore. The view from the town jetty is reminiscent of Manly but the beach area is much larger. The beach also is used by sea lions for sun bathing although it is suggested that humans keep well clear.

This area will see us relaxing for the next couple of weeks - oh well someone has to do it!!