Before we continue our walk along the wonderful Esperance seafront, perhaps it is time to take a quick peek at the town's history.
The first comment I would make is that Esperance is remote. For some strange reason I had never previously really thought too much about its actual location.....I had quite erroneously bundled it together with Albany as 'those two port towns on the south coast'. Wrong. Esperance is 720 kms south-east of Perth and is nearly 500 kms east of Albany. So much for my previous misconceptions. The only significant (if it could be called that) centre on the coast between here and the SA border is Eucla.
The area was initially explored by the Frenchman Bruni d'Entrecasteaux (you may recall the National Park near Windy Harbour on the coast south of Pemberton and Northcliffe is named after him), a French captain whose exploits have been somewhat overshadowed in the historical annals by those of his countryman, Nicholas Baudin.
d'Entrecasteaux (wouldn't you just love having to sign that name) actually discovered The Bay of Isles by accident...he scuttled into Esperance Bay in 1792 to shelter from a ranging storm which was seriously threatening the continued existence of his ship, the 'Esperance'. It can therefore be surly said that all who live in this town 'live in hope'.....esperance is the French word for that emotion!
Good old Mat Flinders poked his nose in here as well, but not until 1802, when he added English names to many not already bearing those of French origin, such as Lucky Bay and Thistle Cove, both of which can be found in the area of Cape LeGrande which we visit later. I rather like the sequence of all this....The Frenchie names the biggies and the Brit fills in the details!
Early Esperance must have been an interesting place indeed. Its primary inhabitants were whalers, sealers and pirates. Many evenings of gentile and sophisticated social intercourse must have been the norm in those days I don't think.
But then, true to form, along came the English settlers in the form of the intrepid Dempster brothers who, in 1866 took up land in the area and established a thriving grazing industry. I'll have a bit more to say about this extraordinary mob later.
By 1890 the first town jetty had been built and Esperance became connected to the outside world at large. Primary produce and gold from the Kalgoorlie fields went out, and supplies came in. Things toddled along quietly until a major shift occurred in the 1960's when an American syndicate in conjunction with the WA Government opened the Esperance sand plains to broad acre farming. By then it had been discovered that the trace elements in the fertiliser superphosphate had the ability to transform the sandy soil of the area into productive cropping land. As a quick parochial aside, this is exactly what happened in the upper south-east of SA around Keith, when the then '90 mile desert' was transformed by the addition of cobalt, of all things.
Farmers flocked to take up what was relatively cheap land. And here things become very close to home.....one of these was my cousin Alan, who left the family farm at Snowtown as a very young man and, together with his wife of the time, took up a large tract of virgin scrub in the Cascade area, some 100 kms north-west of Esperance in the late 1960's. His (and others') struggle to clear the bush and eventually establish a thriving farm is real pioneer stuff. To my great dismay Alan died last August....my personal quest to catch up with him (I spent many happy days on the Snowtown farm as a youngster) was thwarted, but we did have a great chat with one of his daughters who now owns and manages a large Esperance motel.
But enough of this family stuff, back to Esperance. With all this new farming development and relatively close iron ore and nickel mining activity, the expanded port of Esperance became a necessity....and the rest, as they say is history.
The marvellous natural beauty of the coast and the nearby Cape LeGrande has spawned a thriving tourist industry and the local economy is now heavily dependant on that, agriculture and fishing. Many of the some 10,000 souls who call Esperance home are involved either directly in these industries or work in support of them. Obviously the Esperance Port is a single major employer, but as I have said previously, more of that later.
Esperance is also a real education hub. The town boast no less than five primary schools, two secondary and the Goldfields campus of TAFE, most of which are congregated together along Pink Lake Road. It is real fun negotiating that strip during school speed limit hours.
Well, after that potted history, it is time to get back to our favourite area of the town, the seafront. Let's initially pick up where we left off previously......heading north from the Taylor Street jetty.
We next came to a major junction...the Esplanade and Andrews Street where the roundabout is graced with more local art. This raised lump of rock is the resting place of a large bronze seal and various seabirds (none of which can really be see in any of the shots I took...sorry!) And they are pretty lifelike....Liz actually mistook a live juvenile Pacific gull for one of the statues!
From here, looking further north, we could see the large building which is the imaginatively named Pier Hotel, which I discovered to my delight, sells Fat Yak (ale) on tap. We did spend an hour or two in the Pier.
Beyond this the rock wall of the James Street 'jetty' loomed. A marquee had been erected near it. What is going on here we wondered?
The WA State beach volley ball championship finals no less, that's what's happening here. We did linger with the assembled throng for a few minutes....the standard was, not surprisingly, high (and there's that port in the background again!)
Here, where James Street meets the Esplanade, the rock wall which has replaced the original jetty,
provides access to a small branch jetty and pontoon and yet another 'formal' safe swimming area on the seafront. At this point I would invite you to take note of the huge bulk carrier at the iron ore wharf....I'll have more to say about this later.
And here, at the James Street junction, is one of Esperance's most photographed attractions....the stylised whale tail rising majestically above the pavement.
This is a pretty impressive monument to one of the activities which first put the town on the map. The shelter shed beyond is the site of one of the many public BBQ areas along the seafront park,
and here we also found another point of real interest (well, to your scribe at least). For a number of reasons I always like to know the direction in which I am looking and here was a spot at which I could confirm or correct my present thinking. Well done, Esperance. And was I up to speed?....I'm not saying!
Looking back, to the north-west (had to get that in), from this point, the buildings of the Esperance Museum come into view (at the right of shot). Here we are actually seeing the reverse view of the RSL park etc which featured in the CBD missive...not that I suspect that is really helpful...there is no real substitute for actually being there I've discovered....but I keep trying to paint some sort of logical picture.
Turing through 90 degrees to the right, we can see along a further stretch of this wonderful linear park, but here, dear readers, we are about to take a detour away from the seafront. A quick look at the environs of the museum et al was in order.
As we crossed the road the very large propeller facing the Esplanade was more than obvious. No, nothing to do with aviation..this is the first wind turbine to have been erected in Australia. It seems so tiny when compared with the massive blades of the turbines of today.
Esperance was the site of the country's first experimental wind farm many years ago. I visited the very spot on my later tour of the western beaches. Obviously the experiment was successful, and the high tech successors of this oversized aircraft prop have popped up like mushrooms all over the countryside.
Beyond the northern side of the museum buildings
a path leads on through the lawns to another of the town's surprises....a delightful water park nestled between the Esplanade and Dempster Street.
Here our detour took us meandering past various ponds
most of which were adorned with water lilies, and some, like this one, also graced with more local artwork
which, as can be seen here from another angle, was a little esoteric but interesting nevertheless.
Some of the water lilies had just begun to do the right thing by those wandering past. What delightful flowers these plants produce, particularly when massed across their floating raft of leaves.
And it is here that small plaques at the path's edge alerted us to a few more snippets of Esperance history. Sarah Theresa Brooks, who was born on a ship in Plymouth harbour as it was about to depart for Australia in September 1850, originally settled in Victoria with her family.
Some twenty years later she moved to WA, and in 1874, for reasons I've not been able to clearly establish, she and her brother moved from Albany to Israelite Bay.....on foot....a walk through what must have been virgin bush of a mere 650 kms or so. Here, the confirmed spinster began collecting botanic specimens for the WA authorities, a task she maintained for the rest of her 54 years in the area.
But folks, there is more to this extraordinary woman than stunning stamina and a botanic bent. She was also an accomplished artist, musician and linguist. No wonder she never married. Apart from the fact she would not have had the time, who could complete with this array of talent and survive with ego intact? Sarah finally departed this mortal coil at the age of 78. Her name lives on in the botanical names of several species of Australian plants.
Nearby, another small plaque recognises the exploits of the Dempster family, but I'll have more to say about them later.
For now, it is back to the seafront, but in our next we rejoin it at the northern end of the formal park and stroll in the opposite direction.....just for something different!
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