We were up and away early this morning for our planned climb of Frenchman Peak, which is only about 6km from our campground. We had heard that it was a challenging climb on granite, which was backed by the Grade 5 hike level. The early start gave us the chance to climb the hill in the cool of the morning without any wind, with the added bonus that we beat the crowds to the walk. The walk was challenging, but not as bad as some of the other walks we have done once we got used to walking on the steep, hard granite. At the top we enjoyed fantastic views of the area, and the amazing coast line. We spent some time in the cave at the top of Frenchman’s Peak, that had some of the best views of the coast.

We were back at the cars by 1000, and after the preview of the coast line from the top of Frenchman Peak we made a call to go for an explore to Hellfire Bay to take advantage of the brilliant weather. Karen jumped in with us for the explore and Kieran headed back to keep an eye on the Bathurst race. You hear that the beaches around Esperance are next level, and when we walked out of the almost empty carpark and saw Hellfire Bay for the first time we understood what people were talking about. The beach was stunning, and we spent over an hour exploring the rocks at each end of the beach and walking its entire length.

The next bay is called Little Hellfire, and after seeing Hellfire Bay the 40 minute return walk was too tempting. Needless to say Little Hellfire was well worth the hilly walk to see it. By the time we returned to the carpark it was full, and we decided we had been ahead of the rush all day.

After the pleasant surprise of Hellfire Bay we made a call to drive the 7km to Lucky Bay to have a preview for our planned visit in a couple of days. Kerri drove us onto the beach and parked the car on the most amazing beach we have ever seen. As a bonus it had a coffee and ice cream caravan, so it was a great place to spend half an hour just enjoying the scenery.

We headed back to the campground for a late lunch while and watched the unfolding race at Bathurst while Kerri started working through a lot of photos from our exploring.

Tonight we had dinner with Karen and Kieran and played a few hands of Canasta.

Tomorrow we are planning a trip to Cape Arid to check out some of the coast about 100km to the east of here.