Shannon National Park – Esperance

The next morning we did the Great Forest Trees Drive in the Shannon National Park. This drive is through a forest of Karri Trees. Both the Bicentennial and Gloucester Trees are also Karri trees and these trees grow very straight and to a height of around 90m, making them one of the tallest trees in the world. 

We headed on through Walpole, where we stopped to check out the local markets and then onto to The Valley of the Giants to do the Tree Top Walk. This is a boardwalk which is 40m in the air and goes through a forest of veteran tingle trees called the Ancient Empire, it was a pretty cool walk and the trees are amasing.

Jaime and the boys on the Tree Top Walkway

Aidan and Cody inside a giant Tingle Tree

Aidan and Cody having some fun

From here we drove down to Parry’s Beach to stop for lunch and Aidan and Cody enjoyed a catch up with a friend they had made a few nights previously. We would have liked to have stayed here the night and check out some of the great coastline here such as the Elephant Rocks but a big storm was forecast for the next morning in the area, followed by 4 days of rain, so we hot tailed it out of there, past Albany and camped the night on a Pallinup River.

We had a very long drive to Esperance the next day but were greeted with sunshine and warm weather when we arrived! It was also Rugby League Grand Final day, so we found a pub that afternoon to settle down and watch the game. Esperance has beautiful white sand, crystal blue water and is surrounded by a lot of islands. We planned to explore Esperance and head into Cape Le Grand to the well known Lucky Bay which is meant to have the whitest sand and best water in the area, but unfortunately the rain came during the early hours of the morning. There was no point hanging around as the ocean now looked horrible and we were not going to able to see anything nice till the rain cleared in a few days, so with the option of being cold and wet or leaving, we chose to leave - so Nullarbor here we come!.