And I’ll dance with you in Vienna
I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise….
Leonard Cohen
Author: Irina Ilieva
Thistle Cove Freedom
Lucky you in Lucky Bay
56 kilometers east from Esperance lies the Cape Le Grand National Park – an ancient landscape, home to many primitive relict species and breathtaking views. What brought us here was the splendid nature… and beaches.
Thankfully, we were lucky enough to get to the park and the famous Lucky Bay Beach just a day after a bush fire was contained in the area.
And although the weather was not the best when we got there, we really enjoyed the experience of the wonderful white sand and turquoise water in the company of some curious kangaroos and their younglings.
Lucky Bay is a draw for tourists for these precise reasons, so we got there early in the morning and enjoyed an empty strip and unbothered by photographs kangaroo families skipping around.
After a scenic walk on the beach in arguably the whitest sand in the world, we took a glimpse from above with our drone.
And while my boyfriend was deep into droning the bay, the beach, the rocks and the belt of bushes that engulf it, I was up to a new challenge- Selfie-stick use 101.
It was a real early start that day, so we soon needed a recharge of our batteries. Luckily, there was an excellent mobile café, offering sandwiches, and scrumptious apple crumble muffins. As a coffee addict, I could not help, but taste their signature drink – the kangachino- cappuccino, sprinkled with cocoa powder and full of chocolate chips, representing kangaroo droppings on the beach.
You see, I have literally never owned a selfie stick and I decided to buy one, specifically for the purposes of our trip Down Under. So what followed was an exhausting rolling, squatting and crawling on the ground trying to get a decent photo with the cute kangaroos, who were approaching us from the bushes in search for a treat. As is to be expected from a selfie rookie like me, I soon got exasperated and asked my boyfriend for help.
Hope this wildlife interaction will bring a smile to your face in the time of social distancing 🙂
Esperance
The town of Esperance is located some 700 km away from the capital of West Australia. We took the inland route with a stop and hike in the real dry windless heat at Wave Rock. This and our not-so-great supply of refreshments made it really hard for me to bear the trip and I felt absolutely crashed by the time we got there.
I have to also admit that when we finally reached the motel late in the evening, I found the town a bit underwhelming.
Nevertheless, I still enjoyed its compactness and the small museum, which might look like a storage house, but actually hosts a rich collection of retro items, vehicles and shop items that tell the story of the town since its early settlement. It is open for about 3 hours a day and entirely run by local volunteers. Even if you can’t make it in their working times, you can at least have a glimpse of the space debris from NASA’s Skylab.
Continue reading “Esperance”
Western Australia here we go…
Amidst summer haze, bush fires and cyclones, we welcomed the new year in the land Down Under, changed plans, got astray and back on track to the most exciting road trip we have ever experienced.
Western Australia is a region of many beauties, changing landscape and tremendous distances. And of course, many animals. BUT our first day on the road was not exactly the right kind of exciting.
“In 250 kilometers …continue straight“- chimed in the navigation system
It was 2-3 hours after we had left Perth airport and the car rental behind us and we had hit some country roads towards the dream of every Instagrammer – the Wave Rock.
Yes – we are talking about a rock in the shape of a wave. Cool, right?
We had a great plan and some provisions left so we had ignored the few farms we passed by at the beginning of the country road. I was deeply regretting this at that point.
We were driving and driving with almost no sign of life to be seen. Our water was almost over, my eyes strained from staring in the endless road and we had only sweets.
I am not sure how Pavel managed to drive without falling asleep after the brutally early start from Adelaide to Perth, but I was constantly dosing off.
There were even no animals crossing the road to watch out for.
We did stop occasionally, but the temperature outside was over 35 and surely felt like 40+ in this dry land.
And then we saw the sign!
“Yes, coffee” – I foolishly exclaimed
We reached a sleepy deserted-looking parking lot at the entrance of the Hyden National Park. It was just us and two other cars.
No Café or any other refreshments were available, but we refilled all out bottles from the slowly dripping tap.
The Wave Rock and the other formations around were truly remarkable, but we quickly realized this is probably the low season for the area. It was hot and dry.
We climbed up the Rock to explore the area and avoid the group of Asian tourists that had just arrived and occupied various spots of the Wave for photos and personal drone videos.
A shocking view revolved in front of our eyes – beyond the strip of short bush-like trees on the horizon, there was a vast area that had obviously been burned down most probably in a previous bushfire season.
I am not sure if you could imagine what a completely burned down field looks like, but it was like a view of one of these post-apocalyptic movies.
Impressions of Aussies
I have to admit I have rarely been in a country where people are so genuinely nice.
The few Canadians I have met make me think the experience in Canada would be similar, but so far Australia definitely leads my chart.
Although we virtually slept at a different place everyday, somehow we managed to get so many random small talks about things ranging from where we are from to Game of Thrones and Teenage t-shirt preferences.
Here is a short story from the last days of our trip in Western Australia, which illustrates our feeling of Australian hospitality.
We were somewhere on the road from Kalbarri to Monkey Mia. It was a scorching hot day, about 42 degrees outside and we still had a long way ahead of us.
We were discussing our next stop, because I had managed yet again to forget the name I wanted to put in our offline map itinenrary, when we saw some young people who had stopped their car on the side of the road.
One of them was jumping and waving at us, so we immediately decided they had some car issue. We stopped to see whether we could help and he came to us chuckling with laughter.
We asked if they needed any assistance. “Oh I was just trying to be friendly.”- he said
Seriously, aussie mates, ignorant as many of you are about European geography, you are my favorite.
Bushfire, fireworks and other Sydney impressions
We landed in Sydney 3 days prior to NYE and a month after the bushfire season had started. Just our luck the fires around were still manageable. However, you couldn’t really see the sky in Sydney and it felt kind of stifling already. The week before had seen one of the highest temperature records in this part of Australia, so we were prepared for scorching heat. Well, all the news covarage in Europe was not that right after all, cause we spent 3 quite chilly days in town. On the 30th we strolled around Circular Quay and saw some of the projections and fireworks tests for the NYE celebrations.
We had decided though that paying an expensive package for a drink with a view, or otherwise competing with 1.4 mln tourists for a good spot are things we could spare despite the experience. We also had initially planned longer time around Sydney to explore the Blue Mountains and some of the Coastline nearby, but due to the bushfires it was getting increasingly smoky and dangerous.
So we opted in for a flight to Melbourne where we decided to welcome 2020
instead.
Anyway, in the short time we spent there, we did manage to see and experience some cool things. Check them out in my next post – – > 3 days in Sydney in non-beach weather.
The Journey Begins
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Chinese Proverb
For years I have been intending to start a travel blog. I always found excuses not to: too little time, too much work/studies/too much effort, workpublicity limitations, etc…
So why do it now? 2019 was a remarkable year and ended in an even more remarkable way fulfilling my childhood dream to travel to Australia.
I also breached my personal travel record within a year, caught up with awesome people I had lost touch with, met some new inspiringly successful, bald and charmingly nutty ones, visited and experienced places that made me think twice about what is important in life, burned out at least once, while getting too much into my work and personal projects, made new starts, also put a few long-delayed ends…and all this in the year I turned 30.
And I guess the travel blog made it to my New Years Resolution for 2020, which I should probably write down so I keep it at least this year 🙂
Hope you will enjoy some of the info, tips and travel stories of a moderate traveller mixing in urban, cultural, wildlife, nature hikes and scenic spots explorations.
Thanks for joining me!
Never have I ever 