January 16 – Le Grand National Park

Another day of overcast skies but it is a little bit warmer.  Our destination today is Le Grand National Park with our first stop being Lucky Bay.  Not sure why the name but we really wanted to go here because it is also sometimes called Kangaroo Beach.  That is because kangaroos frequently hang out on the beach.  However, today we were not lucky.  No kangaroos.

However, we were able to find a photo of kangaroos on the beach.

But the bay and beach are beautiful.  The sand on Lucky Bay is supposed to be the whitest sand in Australia (as determined by Australia’s National Committee on Soil and Terrain).  And, we agree, it is incredibly white.  It is also very fine and tightly packed.  While walking on the beach most of the time we left no footprints.   And the sand squeaked when we walked on it.

The water was rather cold but we did so some wading and walking along the beach.  It was restful and lovely.  There were a fair number of people at the beach but it was big enough that it wasn’t crowded at all.  Some people drove their vehicles down to the far ends of the beach to have a bit more privacy. 

After freezing our toes, we headed to the next beach, little Thistle Cove...

with it's whistling rock, that didn't whistle while we were there.  

This was followed by Hellfire Bay, with it’s incredibly long beach...

and finally, Le Grand Beach.  And it was suitably named because it was really grand.  I’m not sure we could see the far end of it it was so long.  There were plenty of people boogie boarding in the small surf.  Great day.

Mary enjoyed a chat with this lady from Perth (originally from Switzerland).  Her T-shirt was great.

The fire danger today wasn't too bad...only High.  At least it wasn't Catastrophic!!

We headed back to town for lunch and then took a walk along the Esplanade, right across the street from our hotel.  Lovely walk.