Esperance – Western Australia’s Best Kept Secret

Have you ever seen that photo of a kangaroo lounging on a pristine white sand beach? Some quick googling identified the destination to be Esperance, which is also known for leafy sea dragons.

Esperance isn’t easy to get to – we think this is why it remains so special. From Perth, it is an 8 hour drive or an hour and a half flight – we opted for the latter. The first issue we encountered was not being able to check our bags all the way through from Melbourne. The next issue was having to change terminals in Perth (which takes a minimum of 30-40 minutes). We finally made it to the Rex checkin and paid for our excess baggage. They were super cool about our hand luggage being overweight (the supervisor took one look at the cameras and wanted nothing to do with them as checked baggage).

We stayed at the Esperance B&B By the Sea Our room was spacious and had a lovely view, and the hosts were lovely and offered lots of insider tips about the area.

We spent one fabulous day with Esperance Fishing and Diving. The drive from Esperance to Lucky Bay takes about an hour, and we arrived early enough to have the entire place to ourselves (except for the resident roos).

Once outfitted in our wetsuits and dive gear, we scrambled over some rocks to get to the entry point. From there we descended along a kelp-covered wall to 19 meters (62 feet). I honestly didn’t expect the see any sea dragons because they are small (8-10 inches) and VERY camouflaged, so I was amazed when our dive master started to point them out. We did two dives and saw six leafy sea dragons and four weedy sea dragons.

And for context:

We considered hiking to Frenchman’s peak, but there were SO many bees and it seemed like too much exercise 🙂 Instead, we explored the amazing beaches in Cape le Grand (hint: take the beach route) and the western beaches of Esperance.