Day 7: Balladonia to Esperance

There was a massive thunderstorm overnight, with close flashes of lightning, loud claps of thunder, and a heavy downpour. Fortunately, my $30 tent kept me dry, but the rain turned the red earth outside the tent into mud.

My son and I squelched through the mud to pack up my tent during a dry spell before breakfast at the roadhouse. Then, we visited the adjoining museum to learn how Balladonia made worldwide news in 1979 when NASA's Skylab space station reentered the atmosphere and spread debris across the local area.

It was a 2-hour drive to our next fuel stop, Norseman, which is like a T-junction, with the highway heading north to Coolgardie and south towards Esperance. I stopped there briefly in 1983 on a bus from Perth to Melbourne when I was twenty-one. The bus had travelled from the north, the shortest route from Perth. Forty years on, I was heading south with my twenty-one-year-old son to loop around the southern coast of WA.

T-Junction at Norseman (click for larger image)

I don't know what I expected of Esperance, having only seen it on TV or read about it in the news. Perhaps I pictured a "surfie town"? But the surf near our "beachside" caravan park (a block back from the beach) was flat. 

After last night's noisy thunderstorm, my son needed to catch up on his sleep, so I left him at the campsite and went for a long walk along the esplanade, back towards the town centre. It was good to "throttle back" from several all-day drives and enjoy the harbour views. I shopped for the night's dinner and had a leisurely beer at a pub looking out at the harbour. 

The walk along the esplanade was tiring, and I knew it would take ages to return to the caravan park. So, I hired an e-scooter and rode back, which was fun. I had been gone for a while, but as I recorded in my travel journal, I laughed when my son called me: "Where are you, Dad?" "Part your curtains, mate."