Esperance

'What do you think of Esperance?', people ask me, and I always dutifully reply that it's very pretty. And I'm not being polite here, it is stunning! There's a road out West which winds along the picturesque headlands. The water below is crystal clear and the beaches are white. Big Southern Ocean swells crash into the offshore reefs and islands, sending up geysers of spray. And going the other way you can drive along the beach which curves around to Cape Le Grande. The bush is studded with Banksia- which unfortunately are not in flower now. In short, it is one of the prettiest places I've ever seen.

-'But it is very isolated!', people then reply. Ach, isolated from what? From Perth-700 K's away, which itself is the worlds' most isolated capital. The good thing about isolation is that a small town- 13000 folk- gets to have the infrastructure to be self-sufficient. And for six weeks I'm one of the small cogs in this Esperance Support Machine- which has interfered badly with my desire to see MORE of this fantastic landscape.

So, the past few weekends I've finished the Saturday morning surgery (an activity which should be illegal and which totally screws up my biorythms), to quickly hop in the car and set off. The first trip was to Cape Le Grande- like the Shark Bay area, the coast here was surveyed by the French. Driving along the beach, alone, a bit worried about getting stuck and being caught by the tide. The sand is noisy, and gently dieselling through a turn sounds like a car chase in an American movie.

There's not much of a story to the pictures. Just driving along and stopping at the extra-speccy spots. Waving the camera at things and pottering about. Maison Roofrack was falling apart and the local canvas man has made a new, smaller one to my design. So again lying six feet above the ground at night with the sound of surf in the distance.

The big question is whether I should accept the offer of a permanent job- which comes with a thoroughbred foal as an incentive- in Esperance. I don't know, I don't know... the best weather on the planet is in Carnarvon. Here, although it's November, I have a heater on at night. And the wind is fickle- twisting and turning and veering and backing. The way doctoring is set up in town, it looks like work flexibility might be difficult to arrange. And I have the sneaking suspicion that the rough, outbacky flavour of life above the 26th parallel brings out something exuberant in people. Time will tell. I'm driving up North soon via the scenic route.