Sunday 23 February 2014 - Cape Le Grand

Sunday 23 February 2014 - Cape Le Grand

Finally, the sun put in a consistent and might I even say, stellar, appearance today! It dawned clear and cool and the girls both slept all night long (but I didn’t – random insomnia always seems to kick in those rare times when the children DON’T wake me up in the night!), although Sienna woke at 5:17am (and that’s on Glenn’s watch, which is a few minutes fast). Anyway, the girls seemed fairly content so Glenn gave me a leave pass and I went for a run along the very flat, very firm, very white beach. 5km up, 5km back. It’s 22km long and the part that I saw hardly changed. Beautiful, but a little bit dull... I could see Esperance from the northern part though. I went for runs at Parry Beach and Albany, so I’ve been going quite regularly, but this one was pretty special – it’s my last run in WA! I clocked 49:47 over 10km, not too bad at all. The wind was down and the water was calm and clear (well, it’s always clear) and there was this cool little curling wave rippling through. I had the whole beach to myself, except for the very beginning and when I got back.

Anyway, when I got back to camp I found out Sienna had been woeful (what’s new?) so I sent Glenn off to climb a mountain. He drove up the road to Frenchman’s Peak and climbed the 260-something metres to the top. Perhaps he considered throwing himself off while he was up there after over 12 months with us three girls, but thankfully he returned about two hours after he left with some cool photos. I would have loved to have done it, but it’s so steep we didn’t want to take the girls, even wearing them in the backpacks. And considering I got to climb three trees and did a run today, it was Glenn’s turn for an adventure. The bonus is his heel has healed (ha ha) and he could wear shoes – quite unusual cause he’s worn thongs for just about every walk we’ve done over the past year!

We then went down to Le Grand Beach (just out the front of camp) and the girls pottered in the sand while Glenn and I read magazines and got bitten by nasty flying ant things on the beach. It was nice to soak up a bit of vitamin D! The water was too cool for the girls to swim, so we took them up to the solar showers and then went back to camp for a snack. Then Sienna and I drove over to Hellfire Bay, which we’d checked it out yesterday but it had been all dismal and overcast. I strapped Sienna into the backpack and walked over the hill to Little Hellfire Bay, soaking up some more precious sun. It was hot but not horrendous and the breeze is cool. I was paranoid about snakes though, there’s big tigers here and after a few days of cloud and cold, I know where I’d be if I was a snake, hanging out on a hot walking track! Fortunately, I didn’t see any of the slithering specimens, even in this little patch of about 80m which I nicknamed ‘Snake Alley’ because it seemed so ideal for them, high scrub surrounding a hot gravel track.

After returning to the carpark, we went to Hellfire Bay beach to cool off. You could probably describe it more like an icebath in an airconditioned building though. Nah, it wasn’t that bad. But it was pretty shocking. I had to count myself in to go under a wave and get properly wet! Needless to say, Sienna stood on the beach with the water washing up over her toes, holding my hat and sunglasses while I had my quick dip – she’s such a North Queenslander! Then we played in the (soft but firm, white) squeaky(!) sand for a while before she told me she needed to do a poo. So I quickly washed us off, grabbed our gear and set off towards the car, where the toilet was. Unfortunately, either her understanding of timing is off or she just couldn’t wait, but when we got inside and I pulled her pants down, I discovered we were too late. Ah, parenthood.

In the meantime, Yasmin and Glenn had been cooking up a storm. They had a delicious stew on the hob and a damper in the Baby Q by the time we got back. The rest of the afternoon was spent preparing for a mammoth drive over the Nullarbor, streamlining the packing and planning meals and snacks so that we can get off early, before the wind gets too strong. I went and got some lovely sunset photos, saying goodbye to this magnificent, strange and compelling coastline. The girls fell asleep almost before their heads hit their pillows because they were so tired (no nap today – it was so warm we didn’t know if they’d go down, plus Sienna and I didn’t get back from the beach till 1:30pm and she hadn’t fallen asleep in the car, for once)! The song is sung, another day is done.

My farewell to WA song (to the tune of Bound for Botany Bay):

Farewell to WA

We’ve been here for many a day

There’ve been lots of smiles and some tears once in a while

Now we’re heading to the state of SA