Hi Everyone,

We have been very busy since leaving Esperance. On Monday we headed north to Hyden to visit Wave Rock and the Hippos Yawn. These two rock formations have been created over many thousands of years due to wind and water erosion.

The boys had a great time surfing and walking on top of Wave Rock and visiting Hippos Yawn. Check out the photos below.

We stayed overnight in a little town called Lake Grace. The town seems to be surrounded by a number of salt lakes which have been in flood in recent years. We walked out onto one of the lakes, aptly called Lake Grace, to pick up some salt.

The following day we headed to Denmark, in south west WA. More on Denmark in our next post.

Cheers,
Tom.

Hi,

It’s me we are now in Hyden and we climbed Wave Rock. Wave Rock is 15 meters high and is 110 meters long that’s one big wave I mean rock. It was formed by water and strong winds hitting the rock.

While you are there you can also see a rock that looks like it’s yawning. They call it The Hippo’s Yawn. If you want to see the Hippos Yawn you have to walk a long track,but we took a shortcut.

See you soon,
James:)
PS we will put up some photos tonight

Hi Everyone,

Well it is our last day in Esperance, and we will be sad to leave tomorrow as we have had a great 3 days and will certainly plan to come back, just not sure when.

We went back to Twilight Beach again this morning, as we enjoyed it so much yesterday. Karen swam out to the rock Island which is about 100m from the beach. The kids wanted to go as well but decided to stay onshore and chase some large fish that were swiming near a small rocky outcrop close to shore. When Karen came back, very tired, we had some lunch before I took on the challenge and made it to the Island comfortably. Check out the photos below of Karen and I.

We head off to Hyden to see Wave Rock tomorrow morning before stop overnight a Lake Grace.

Cheers,
Tom.

Hi Again Everyone,

This post is for my brother David, who wanted to know if we had seen any bits of the US Spacestation, Skylab, that re-entered the atmosphere over Esperance and crashed leaving several pieces of space junk scattered across a wide area of the WA southwest coast in 1979. Parts of the broken spacestation were found near Esperance, up through Norseman and Balladonia, all of which are places we have visited so far.

Balladonia had some pieces in a small museum that is part of the Roadhouse on the Eyre Highway. I have attached some photos of the boys in the museum, as well as a funny sign that is located here in Esperance.

Another interesting fact is that Esperance is home to Australia’s first ever wind farm. These giant windmills are located in the hills to the west of Esperance, not far from Twilight Beach, and generate most of the towns power. Apparently we are in Esperance during the best month of the year, according to the locals, as there is little wind and the weather is still great for the beach. The rest of the year is apparently very windy and hence the reason for installing a wind farm. Below are some photos of a monument that is located near the centre of town and provides more information about the Wind Farm.

Well that’s enought science for now.
Cheers,
Tom.

Whats up,

Have I got alot of things to talk to you about. This morning we went to Twilight beach we had a swim. When we went under water it was like we were in another world. We saw puffer fish, 8 pointed star fish, a jelly fish that looked like a plastic bag and lots more.

Later we went to Mermaid Leather. It’s a shop were you can buy shark, sting ray and fish skin. It might sound gross but they use it to make hand bags and wallets. When we were there I bought some Bronze Whaler Shark skin and my brother and I both brought a shark tooth necklace. I brought a Tiger Shark tooth and my brother’s was a Bull Shark tooth.

See you soon,
James:D

Hi Everyone,

Well we made it to Esperance yesterday morning after a short 2 hour drive from Norseman. We have a great caravan site that over look the kids park then over to Esperance Bay, which is beautiful.

Yesterday afternoon we went for a drive to Cape LeGrand National Park where we visited Lucky Bay and went snorkeling in the most pristine waters we have seen. I have added a few photos below to give you and idea of what is was like.

I have also added some photos to some of our previous posts so check them out as well.

Bye for now,
Tom.

Happy birthday Rachael Palmer.
Have a great day and we will try and Skype you tonight or tomorrow.
Love from Tom, Karen, James and Matthew from across the Nullarbor.

Hi,

We have finally crossed the Nullarbor and it felt like it took forever but it only took us about 2 days. We stopped at a place called Cocklebiddy we saw a garden full of gnomes, my Nanna would have loved it. We will post a photo later.

See you soon,
James:0

Hi everyone,

We made it safely across the Nullarbor from Eucla to Norseman. Along the way we passed through a few small showers, across some amazing plains and over some beautiful ranges in this part of WA. Fortunately the only animals we saw were some emu that looked like they were having a meeting to discuss how they should cross the Eyre Highway.

We also made it across the longest stretch of straight road in Australia, the 90 mile (146.6km) straight. If I wasn’t towing 2 tonne of caravan and was driving a supercar I would have opened “the taps” for sure.

Our scheduled stop was Balladonia, near the end of the straight but, due to the time change (we are now on Perth time), we arrived there at 1.30. As it was still early we decided to top up on fuel and head here, to Norseman, classified as the end of the Nullarbor crossing if you are coming from Adelaide.

Today we are heading to Esperance for the weekend, so I will update the blog with some more pictures over the weekend and get my rugby tips in for this weekend today.

Bye for now,
Tom.

Hi Everyone, Matthew here,

While we were at Streaky Bay I saw a replica of a shark that was caught by a man who lived in Streaky Bay using a rod and reel. The shark weighed 1500kg and he was only using 24kg fishing line.

Catch out the photos, he was big..
Bye for now,
Matthew.