So where were we... ah yes, the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie - the largest gold mine in the southern hemisphere. Note: Australia claims a lot of the biggest things in the southern hemisphere. We drove up to the Super Pit lookout where you could see down into the pit. It was definitely large and deep. The Super Pit is in my opinion the Grand Canyon of mines. The dump trucks and utes going up and down the sides of the mine with their heavy loads looked like little toy trucks. After seeing how narrow the roads going up and down the sides of the mine were I decided maybe being a dump truck driver wasn't such a good idea after all and Debbie agreed with me.After feeling like a peon standing next to giant truck tires and a massive shovel that showed how big the mining equipment was we moved on down the road to Esperence. We stopped briefly for some lunch at the halfway point between Kalgoorlie and Esperence in a town called Norseman. Looking at a map of the area there is a town en route from Kal to Norseman called Higginsville, which is also the name of a town about 30 miles north of my hometown. The trips between our destinations were becoming shorter now after the longest stretch which was from Perth to Kalgoorlie. I figured it is about the same distance from Perth to Kalgoorlie as it is to drive from Kansas City to Omaha, Nebraska.
Travelling on a tight budget meant I would take all the freebies I could get and I got a free drink if I kareoked... so I did. Debbie was under the false impression that I am a good singer - she once heard me jokingly belt out the Star Spangled Banner and thought it was really good, ugh - so she encouraged me to have a go at the kareoke. Besides getting a free drink, the only thing kareoking would achieve was proving Debbie wrong about my singing skills. Despite a year of voice lessons and years of choir training in high school, my vocal talents are limited to classical music, not rock 'n roll. I would never make a good rock star. I also never seem to pick the right songs for my vocal range. I started out with John Denver's Country Road, but it was too low for me to sing and in an attempt to redeem my singing status I thought I would try something a little higher and more fun to sing... like Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I think the kareoke lady actually cut off the end of that song just to get it over with - yeah, it was a painful experience for everyone involved. Luckily I wasn't in America because I would probably have gotten booed off stage. But the good-natured people of Australia were kind enough to look away and silently swig their beers to dull the pain caused by my tortured vocal chords. It made the evening more enjoyable and go by quicker anyway.
Hellfire Bay...
...and Le Grand Beach where we sipped champagne on the gorgeous white sand beach and soaked up the afternoon sun and relaxing atmosphere.
We pulled into Esperence in the late afternoon and checked into the Blue Waters Lodge - a hostel that overlooks the bay and our accomodation for the next two nights. We settled in then found a pizza place to get a cheap dinner. Debbie and I shared a bottle of red wine with our pizza dinners at a picnic table across the road from the bay and discussed our current relationships, our post-Master's degree lives, what our futures would hold and where life would take us in the next year. After this deep and meaningful conversation it was time to lighten up the mood and find some nightlife to lift our spirits. Unforutnately, there weren't many options. The Pier Hotel seemed to be the one and only place to go on a weekend night, but at least there was kareoke which Debbie talked me into doing.
Travelling on a tight budget meant I would take all the freebies I could get and I got a free drink if I kareoked... so I did. Debbie was under the false impression that I am a good singer - she once heard me jokingly belt out the Star Spangled Banner and thought it was really good, ugh - so she encouraged me to have a go at the kareoke. Besides getting a free drink, the only thing kareoking would achieve was proving Debbie wrong about my singing skills. Despite a year of voice lessons and years of choir training in high school, my vocal talents are limited to classical music, not rock 'n roll. I would never make a good rock star. I also never seem to pick the right songs for my vocal range. I started out with John Denver's Country Road, but it was too low for me to sing and in an attempt to redeem my singing status I thought I would try something a little higher and more fun to sing... like Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I think the kareoke lady actually cut off the end of that song just to get it over with - yeah, it was a painful experience for everyone involved. Luckily I wasn't in America because I would probably have gotten booed off stage. But the good-natured people of Australia were kind enough to look away and silently swig their beers to dull the pain caused by my tortured vocal chords. It made the evening more enjoyable and go by quicker anyway.The next day Debbie and I drove out to Cape Le Grand National Park about a 30 minute drive from Esperence to have a look at some of Esperence's notorious white sand beaches. According to one online source Esperence is the oasis at the western end of the Nullarbor Plain - a 100,000 square mile desert made up of a limestone plateau that stretches across the southern half of Australia. Once you've been through the desert plains Esperence is a tropical oasis. The beaches of Cape Le Grand were definitely beautiful and there were many to explore, but we only visited three:
Hellfire Bay......Lucky Bay...
...and Le Grand Beach where we sipped champagne on the gorgeous white sand beach and soaked up the afternoon sun and relaxing atmosphere.We toasted to the end of the semester and to new beginnings. Families and groups of young friends from the beachside caravan park joined us in enjoying the beautiful day on the beach. I spotted a pod of dolphins gliding in graceful, sweeping arcs across the surface of the sparkling ocean water just off the beach. I watched the calming movements of these gentle sea mammals as they were catching their lunch while Debbie recorded our travels in her journal. The sky was cloudless, the weather was warm and a mild breeze blew. The cheerful, melodious strains of the laughter of children playing nearby completed the perfect scene. Life was good and we were grateful.
Just before the sun went down we returned to Hellfire Bay to BBQ some sausages for afternoon tea. Then made our way back to the city of Esperence and the Pier Hotel for a quiet, light, salad bar supper and a bowl of soup. The next day we had breakfast at a local cafe and visited a few shops then headed out of town to Hyden, our last stop on the trip.
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