Esperance

Days 48-50: April 19-21 Western Australia – Ravensthorpe and Esperance
We cannot believe that we have been gone so long; we just have been having so many great adventures and experiences. Heading east on 1 Highway out of Albany we traveled along very straight and very quite roads. We traveled through the continuous country side of Western Australia seeing more Eucalyptus Trees, planted pine plantations, and many sheep and cattle stations. This very open and undeveloped part of the country. We stopped in a small berg of Ravensthorpe – population 400+. We found the only apparent “caravan park” and called it an evening. It was a bit rough to the eye, but was really one of our nicer stops. While out in the BUSH - it had a nice cement pad to park the Moho on and the bathrooms were private and very clean. Had to love the landscaping: garden of old toilets and Barbies – one had to see it to really appreciate. We got a few minutes of sunshine and sat outside and enjoyed the respite from the rain.
Sunday morning we headed east again to Esperance. We had so much about this area, beautiful coast line. We got in to town and it was Gray and Wet. We found the Information Center and got some ideas for touring when and if the weather improved. We went through the Esperance Historical Museum and were quite intrigued with their Sky Lab - the original space station exhibit. Sky Lab fell to earth in July 12, 1979. It was supposed to fall into the Indian Ocean and clear land, but it started to descend earlier and part of it hit land fall in Esperance. There were great big pieces of debris.
We awoke Monday morning to RAIN, LIGHTENING & THUNDER. Hmmmm not exactly what we had planned for. We went down to the dock in hopes that both the weather would improve and that there would be enough passengers willing to go out on this wet looking day. 9:00am arrived and we had the necessary number of passengers and it had stopped raining -- hooray! It was a great cruise we saw many of the 105 islands in the Recherche Archipelago. We saw sea lions, sea eagles and an amazing number of granite out-croppings. We stopped in at Woody Island for "Tea" -- the sun broke out and we had a nice bush walk to Twiggy Bay -- location where a dog that had washed overboard, managed to swim ashore and survive for 3 1/2 months before his owner heard that some passing boater had seen a dog. Twiggy was rescued and lived happily ever after. Another great day and great adventures.