Day 201 Esperance (Great Ocean Drive), WA

What started out as a miserable cold wet day slowly turned into what you might expect at the end of October - a sunny day!  We had decided to drive the Great Ocean Drive that is a 40km loop drive that takes you west of Esperance before turning to the north and then back to the east.  We swung by the Esperance Visitor Centre to pick up a map that would show us the points of interest along the way.  There are 23 points of interest.

We skipped the first three points of interest as they are within walking distance of our caravan park and we will visit them over the next couple of days, so our first stop was at the Rotary Lookout.  It was raining quite heavily when we reached the summit so no getting out of the car to climb the lookout tower. There are a couple of walks starting from this point that we may get a chance to do tomorrow when the weather is predicted to improve.

There are heaps of places to stop along this very beautiful drive and on a day without the rain it would be spectacular.  However we did stop at all the stops and if the rain wasn't too heavy we walked to the lookout points.  There were quite a few surfers braving the cold water and the waves looked to us like they would be a surfers dream.  At one of the beaches we came across a shark warning siren with a sign saying to leave the water immediately if the siren sounded!  This is great white shark territory so I don't think any surfer would ignore the warning....

Further along the drive we came across a turnoff pointing to the wind farm.  Imagine our surprise when we reached the wind farm only to find that he had been completely decommissioned.  It was however one of the first wind farms to be established in Australia.  I do have to ask the question again though.  What happens to all these parts....

Continuing along the drive we came to a very impressive limestone cliff face at Nine Mile Beach.  You had to walk down the long staircase to see these cliffs so I imagine many would not make the journey.  Well worth it though.

Our last beach stop was at Eleven Mile Beach. This beach is a "free beach" where clothes are optional.  We didn't realise this until we saw the sign at the bottom of the staircase.  No-one here today though, so we were saved the embarrassment 😂

We will definitely do this drive again tomorrow with the BOM promise of a sunshine day.  First up though tomorrow is a flight to Lake Hillier - the pink lake.  I am praying that we get to see the beautiful pink of this lake but the airline does state that it is not a guarantee.  

Philips GoPro footage from today.....