South Western Australian Roadtrip

A southwestern Australian Road trip through the outback. I once thought driving the Nullarbor would be something I wanted to do, but after this road trip, I think I’ll skip the Nullarbor. Once you leave Perth, it gets remote, and after Esperance, it gets even more remote than what we experienced. Driving in this part of the world is something. There’s hardly anyone out here; you can drive hours without seeing anyone. Small towns are hours apart, usually with a population of ten or fewer. Occasionally, we reach a larger settlement with a gas station and convenience store, with a population a few hundred. Cell service is almost non-existent outside of Albany and Esperance. The Nullarbor would be even more remote and takes days to drive.

We set out on Sunday after Alyssa’s hockey game for Margaret River. Margaret River is about three hours south of Perth and is famed for its winemaking. We saw a few wild Emu’s and hundreds of kangaroos on the way down. The next morning, we planned to drive five hours to Albany, a former whaling town on the south coast; however, a bushfire detoured us by two hours.

Once we made it to Albany, the weather was much cooler and windier. The next morning, we set off further east to Esperance. The beaches around Esperance are among the best in the world, but in rough weather can be very dangerous, not to mention the sharks.

When we arrived in Esperance, there was a gale warning for the next morning, so we tried to see some of the beaches close to town. There are a few other popular beaches a little further east, like Lucky Bay, where there are usually kangaroos hopping about on the white sand and Wharton Beach, often voted as one of the best beaches in the world. Unfortunately, with the gale warning, it didn’t look like we’d see these places.

The next morning saw a bit of rain, but by nine am, the sun started peaking out. We thought we’d take our chances and head out. We ended up seeing most of the places in Cape Le Grand National Park and then took a red dirt road shortcut over to Wharton Beach. The day was mostly sunny, but with lots of wind and a few showers, the kangaroos were too shy this day.

On the way back to Perth, we stopped at Wave Rock, a granite rock formation that’s been eroded over the past 2.7 billion years to look like a 110-meter-long wave.