Esperance, Western Australia cruise port guide

Esperance and the Recherche Archipelago sheltering Esperance Bay received their name in 1792, when a French expedition under d’Entrecasteaux looked for shelter from a storm. Ten years later Matthew Flinders took refuge at Lucky Bay, some 30 kilometers southeast of Esperance near Cape Le Grand, another feature named during the French visit. It was not until the 1860s that settlement began and by the 1890s Esperance was known as the “Gateway to the Goldfields” further inland. Today some 12,000 residents live in Esperance. The town is southeast Western Australia’s only port and as such quite important for grain and mineral exports. Tourism is a major factor as Esperance and its surrounding area have such unusual attractions as a museum featuring debris from Skylab’s 1979 return to earth, a full-size replica of Stonehenge, the Pink Lake –which formerly used to be pink- an IBA for Hooded Plovers and Banded Stilts, several national parks and some of the whitest beaches in Australia. Lucky Bay is one of the iconic places, as kangaroos are regularly seen on the beach sunbathing.