After reading well into the AM to finish our books (cos we can) we slept very late. We then decided to get to know Esperance by foot. The waterfront area here is magic. You look out across magnificent blue water to 105 islands that make up the Recherche Archipelago. After a late lunch we spent several hours in the amazing museum that housed everything from a steam train to contents of a sealers cave from one of the larger islands. A negro pirate lived out there for years. The centre piece was the remains of a US Space Station that crashed on a property 50ks outside of town. The local council issued a $400 fine on the US Gov for littering and God bless the Yanks a radio jock collected the money and paid it.

Late in the afternoon we went out to the edge of town to a wetland with a network of boardwalks ending with a bird hide. Pa blew me away by producing two magnums out of the deep freeze in the back of the Big Red Car to munch on while we walked.

The hide was on a lake full of water birds. The swallows followed us and the the combination of an egret and a sunset was irresistible.