You can't visit Esperance without spending at least one day at Cape Le Grand National Park, and you can't visit Cape Le Grande National Park without visiting Frenchman Peak.
At the base of the hike is something like a dozen space car park with no facilities, just enough of a view of the peak to let you know what you're getting yourself into.
Frenchman Peak Hike
The Hike itself is a round trip of around 3km, climbing to an elevation of about 266m, but starting at 86m. The whole hike is over granite and there's very little shaded areas until you get to near the top where you have choice of the first smaller cave, followed by the more popular large cave below the peak.
The route is vaguely marked, but it's such a popular destination and the goal is fairly obvious, you can't really get lost.
Walking up the granite giant it was easy to doubt the ease of the return journey, but when I actually descended I found it much easier, mainly because the view down the slope made path planning much easier.
The first real stop up the hill takes you to a half cave, more of an eroded overhang, but the first chance at a bit of shade.
The real prize though, is taking your short break and then continuing the walk up to the top of the peak and taking in the stunning views.
Once I was sick of the views, the panoramas, the selfies, groufies and 'would you like me to take a photo of you guys', I walked back down, passing the tik tokers (eurgh) to find a way into the big cave. If you've heard of Kalbarri's Nature's Window, this is easily Esperance's living room window of nature. The cave is huge and no photo really captures the size...
The big cave - something like 6 photos of 3 different exposures for an HDR Panorama
Walking down was as explained, much quicker, but wow, that was a very enjoyable climb!
Cape Le Grande is more commonly known for its beaches, more famously known for Lucky Bay, but our first stop was Rossiter Bay for a leg stretch and some drone expeditions.
Lucky Bay, easy enough to drive onto, with its compacted sand surface was beautiful. Though afternoon visit meant there were no kangaroos and it was very breezy. There's plenty of space though that you can make one section your own private beach.
Contrary to tourist opinion though, I would agree with the local opinion that Thistle Cove is the best beach around. No cars allowed, protected cove, Frenchman Peak in the distance, very peaceful.
There was also Cape Le Grand beach, which you can also drive on, but at this stage we were becoming sick of all these good looking beaches. On the way back we dropped into the Esperance Stonehenge. At $13/person it was in the running for most expensive tourist trap in the area. It's crap. Don't go.
Dinner was at Fat Face and very good.
