to seeing how your other half lives—even for a week—is the juicy allure of luxury travel. You may not be able to afford a yacht, but you can rent one. You don’t have a beach villa with servants, but for an epic night out, you can stay somewhere that makes you feel good. But what about seeing how just 0.03 percent of the world’s population lives—in a place of green, unspoiled nature, yet packed with 21st-century amenities? After all, such is the life of people living in one of the most remote places on Earth, southwest Australia. This spring (their fall), I had the good fortune to explore a part of this vast area. I swam at sparkling white sand beaches where only wild kangaroos were your companions, soaring over rainbow-colored lakes, learning unfamiliar history, gobbling up food delicious and infused with wine from the finest vineyards.
Almost a decade ago I visited Perth on a whim and took the classic cruise to Rottnest Island, Margaret River and a small part of Perth itself. This time, I flew to another part of the world (5 hours to San Francisco, 15 hours to Sydney, another 5 hours to Perth) to explore another part of Western Australia—Esperance—as well as other parts of Perth.
Kangaroos at Lucky Bay, Cape La Grand National Park
Western Australia Travel
Sunny, mild weather greeted me as I exited the airport. After a nap at my centrally located hotel, QT PerthI have attended Two feet and one heartbeat for a mini hike. This being Australia, we quickly found ourselves in a pub—Foxtrot, a place of polished wood and taxed foxes—where stories of Perth’s steady rise since the gold rush is spread around the drink. Although a corporate town in many ways, Perth is relatively laid-back. That being said, those looking for a night where things are a little more scenic seem to congregate at QT Perth’s signature restaurant, Santini Bar & Grill, where I dine before crawling into bed.
Modern medicine bought at a drugstore in Mexico guarantees a good night’s sleep, and when I go for a jog in the morning, I’m awake enough to notice that the downtown streets are packed with people. I absolutely love working remotely, but as a traveler it’s exciting to see such a bustling city. I refueled at Coee Perth, a cafe along the Swan River, then circled King’s Park, one of the largest urban parks in the world. It’s full of bush trails, rubber tree-lined paths, and golf course-level lawns. And it overlooks the skyline of a still-growing city of more than 2 million inhabitants.
One area that Australian tourism is keen to build these days is any experience related to Aboriginal culture. If your first reaction is to spend part of your hard-earned vacation on something that seems a bit “eat your peas,” then just an hour spent with Dale Tillbrook at Mandoon Estate will make you intolerable. get that. The story of the Aboriginal people of southwestern Australia is an incredibly rich, albeit dark, one. But Tillbrook weaves those stories as you discover the foods these cultures cultivated long before the arrival of Europeans. You’ll try youlk, which is like a carrot with a hint of pear, and devour the roasted acacia seeds, like a combination of hazelnuts and coffee. You can taste all sorts of lemons and gobble up sandalwood seeds while marveling at how our obsession with tree scents means these delectable things have long been overlooked.
Esperance can be found on the central south coast of Western Australia, at the water’s edge of one of the green patches that surround Australia’s vast and merciless interior. It’s possible to drive there, but REX (Regional Express) flies daily from Perth, where the regional terminal is packed with men and women in blue, orange and lime jumpsuits. They’re FIFOs, like flying in and out, and there’s something a little bit bizarre about being confronted as a recreational tourist with people who literally “go to the mines.”
Western Australia Travel
The flight is about 75 minutes on a biplane and then it’s a quick drive (you’ll need to rent a car) to get to town. My home for a few days is Esperance Wooden House Village, a collection of cute A-frames and cabins centered near the horse farms along Bandy Creek. If you’re the one who wakes up at night to pee (or your biological clock is messed up by time zones), head to one of the cabins because the A-frame bedroom is lofted. The town itself is about a five-minute drive away and has an odd mix of things. It is immaculately clean with a picturesque promenade lined with Norfolk pines overlooking the offshore Recherche Islands. The infrastructure is thoroughly modern, but the buildings along them look more like something out of a border town – some sturdy, some flimsy. Looming in — and in stark contrast to — all this charm is the oil pier where ore and grain from the hinterland arrived on rail before being transported to the modern world.
My first meal in town was shark gummies at Loose Goose, a longstanding local spot. It is served with garlic and chives sauce over mashed potatoes and is all the superlative words one uses when describing a delicious fish. (Sadly, the apple crumble I finished wasn’t equally top notch). Given that Esperance only has about 14,000 people and is extremely remote, it’s remarkable how well I ate while there. Those who crave food straight from the garden fare can head out of town to Yirri . forest, an olive oil farm where Shane and Anne O’Neill receive lunch pulled straight from their garden. The view from their dining barn is an unobstructed view of the rolling farm and natural jungle, and the couple is walking straight out of the center of the glamorous farmer couple selection center. For some reason, convinced that mechanical aptitude was buried deep within me, Shane even naively tried to talk to me about assembling their olive press. For breakfast, you can’t miss Cloud Eleven, a family-run cafe and eatery where you’ll catch the classic Australian obsession with coffee. For something more upscale, there’s Taylor St. Quarters on the water. And for families, there’s nothing better than Lucky Bay Brewing, which serves classic bistro fare overlooking the sprawling lawn with children’s play sets.
Western Australia Travel
Esperance has a few major attractions and one of them has always been its pink lake. Now, whether or not it was the fault of the railroad tracks placed next to it impeding the natural process, which seems to be the consensus, Lake Hillier outside Esperance is no longer rosy. But those who want to observe this strange quirk of nature, where the interaction of salt and algae creates multicolored pools of water, are not in luck. They just need to soar into the air, because the farmlands north of town have dozens of pools that look like milky contact lens cases. To go up and see them, you need to book a tour with Esperance Tourism, which also runs a 4×4 experience along the sprawling sandy beaches of Cape Le Grand. With the Esperance Tour, you’ll have the chance to sip tea with the kangaroos on Lucky Bay Beach, recently named the best in the world. The water there is famous for its clarity and cars can run right on the snow-like sand (due to its high silica content) creaking. It’s a bit like being picky in the face of a host of supermodels, but in my opinion the most spectacular beach of the region is neighboring Hellfire Bay, a tight curve of a white sand beach with clear blue waters. .
The whole area is an embarrassment of wealth. While you need a 4×4 vehicle to drive on the beaches, any car will suffice on Esperance’s famous Great Ocean Drive. It is a 40 km long road that runs parallel to the impressive coastline. There are sections where the waves crash against coffee-colored cliffs and others have great beaches for surfing and swimming—like Twilight or Blue Haven. Plus, there are trails for biking, hiking, and jogging.
It’s actually more of a hump than a peak, a rounded granite outcrop covered with white, gray, and pink crystals from millions of years ago. It’s no longer glittering and pointless, but when the sun rises, Frenchman’s Peak is the place to watch Cape Le Grand National Park come to life. Climbing is not difficult—20 to 40 minutes depending on your fitness. Driving into the park an hour before sunrise can be the hardest part of the whole endeavor. You tensely gripped the steering wheel in case of a lethargic kangaroo in the middle of the road. While the view from the top is amazing, more than that you’ll likely have it all to yourself. Amazed is the word that comes to mind when thinking that a signature sunrise hike in a popular national park can be done in complete solitude. Just to add to that feeling is that after hiking, I stopped by Hellfire Bay for a cool swim. Again, all alone. But that’s tourism in Western Australia.
I spent my last night in the region in one of the continent’s most historic cities—Fremantle, located at the mouth of the Swan River and part of greater Perth. As the region’s original port city, it is a rarity among Australian cities in that much of its historic Victorian architecture remains amazingly intact. Indeed, hanging on the restored walls of the National Hotel on the town’s main stretch of film is an aerial shot of the city a century ago alongside a contemporary and very much a contemporary one. little change. Like Charleston, South Carolina, Fremantle is largely preserved because it was left behind economically a century ago. In this case, things moved upstream to Perth, leaving block after block open to artists, bohemians, and the rougher sections of society.
Since then it has been partially remodeled—I spent the night in Warders Hotel, which was once home to the city’s fearsome prison guards. My guide for a walking tour up and down its streets is the tour operator’s bubbly Adie Chapman Oh Hey WA. As an interloper, I can’t speak to the controversies this town is having over its identity, but I find it to be a magical mix of galleries, sex shops, Dive bars, tourist traps, pubs, clubs, and fine restaurants—still enjoy the spicy but irresistible Massaman beef curry at Emily Taylor and the mushroom-overloaded risotto at Vin Populi.
With a distended stomach (I still haven’t completely lost my appetite due to coming from a large family), I walked home that evening. My mind drifted, and I was transported back into Esperance’s tiny plane flying through the skies. Small planes are usually an empty-handed event for me, but there’s something about seeing unspoiled beaches and lakes devastated anywhere else in the world so empty. . Though remote, the ability to experience places that way today is, as it is said, priceless. So I will be back.
