Playing With Crab Holes at Observatory Beach

Light reflecting off the stairs down to Observatory Beach, Esperance, Western Australia.  Photo: © T-Rex Photography (Tom Jessett) 2015

Last weekend was Western Australia Day. This meant a WHOLE EXTRA DAY to do stuff! Woohoo! So guess what we did? We went and took photos (surprise, surprise!) Usually, on Saturday and Sunday nights, The Photographer will head off to one of the beaches to take photos. Because I get bored of doing this every weekend, I stopped going, except on the odd occasion when it tickles my fancy and, on this WA Day Saturday, it just so happened to tickle my fancy to join him on one of his photography escapades. As usual, I rugged up in a hoodie, but forgot my scarf - believe it or not but it's actually cold and windy in Esperance in the evening - and we headed out in the Trusty Triton in search of a good viewpoint of the sunset over a beach.

'Stairway to Heaven' by T-Rex Photography. Observatory Beach, Esperance, Western Australia.  Photo: © T-Rex Photography (Tom Jessett) 2015

Eventually, we pull up in the car park at Observatory Beach because it looks like there'll be plenty of reflections to be had in the water along this long beach. The Photographer unloads his camera gear and we head on down the Stairway to Heaven.

Skipping down the Stairway to Heaven. Observatory Beach, Esperance, Western Australia.  Photo: © T-Rex Photography (Tom Jessett) 2015

When I'm in a particularly good mood, I have a tendency to skip - it's my happy walk! So I skipped down the stairs as The Photographer was clicking away on his camera. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs and landing on the beach, we head off straight for the rocks to the east end of Observatory Beach. The sun is not far from setting and the colour of the rocks with the sunlight against them is amazing - this is what attracted us to that end. I have no idea if The Photographer got any photos of those rocks as we approached them but I certainly enjoyed the view as we walked towards them.

Along our way to the rocks, I noticed that the beach had long clusters of 'bubbles' or mounds of sand in it. I also noticed that the usual tiny crab holes were positioned in the centre of each of these weird looking 'bubbles' in the sand. With my childish curiosity, I decided to investigate more - I 'popped' one of the 'bubbles' of sand and it collapsed! ...So I 'popped' another one, and another one, and another one - I had discovered proper crab hole caves! I was so excited - they were actual mini caves in the sand that the crabs had dug themselves into, and popping them was like popping the bubbles in bubble wrap - I was HOOKED! Don't worry though, the crabs had long gone back into the water by that stage (the tide was out and they weren't hanging around without any water), so I wasn't crushing any innocent crabs as I popped their single-use homes.

The Photographer was kind of getting impatient with me though because the sun was about to set and he wanted to get himself set up properly by the rocks and take lots of other photos before the sun actually set. So he stopped me from enjoying my moment of being a five-year-old and had to keep me walking along the beach to get to the rocks in time for the sunset. (I saw so many poppable crab houses on our way, I knew I had to go back and pop them when he was busy!)

'Reach for the Sky' - Observatory Beach, Esperance, Western Australia.  Photo: © T-Rex Photography (Tom Jessett) 2015

One of the things I love about Observatory Beach is that the beach itself is quite deep and the tide goes out reasonably far, which means that we can walk over the rocks in the shallows before the tide starts to come in again. That evening's sunset was looking to be a real cracker - there were cool clouds everywhere, enough to create lots of reflection but not too much so that it would block the sun completely. The Photographer got out his tripod and started snapping away and somewhere in the middle of it, I offered my services to be a silhouette model in front of the setting sun. If you look closely in the above photo, you can see that I moved my arms at the wrong time - oops! I gave up after that one - The Photographer needed a still model (i.e. himself) and I wanted to get back to popping crab holes!

Panorama sunset at Observatory Beach, Esperance, Western Australia.  Photo: © T-Rex Photography (Tom Jessett) 2015

By this time, the sun was dipping just below the horizon and that's when the best colours often come out to play in the sky - absolutely breathtaking! The Photographer managed to get some AMAZING photos of the sunset with reflections of the colourful clouds on the water between the rocks, and over the surf along the beach - the photo above is one of my favourite sunset photos yet. I think he managed to capture so many awesome photos, that he doesn't know what to do with them all! 

'Where's Wally?' - can you find The Photographer? Observatory Beach, Esperance, Western Australia

I was getting a little bored at this stage, so I just walked off and started popping the crab holes - so much fun! Honestly, just like bubble wrap, there are so many of them and it's addictive! In case you were wondering, I had never seen the hollow crab holes in the beach before - I'd seen zillions of crab holes in the sand on beaches before, obviously, but not the actual mini caves that these crabs had created, hence my fascination with these collapsible crab hole caves. During my childish activity, however, I hadn't forgotten that we were there to watch the sunset. So I stopped for a few minutes to watch the sunset in all its beauty (proper pretty, I tell you). I even managed to capture some photographs of my own - above, is what I call my 'Where's Wally' series.

T-Rex: 'I look like I'm taking a child for a walk.'  Photo: © T-Rex Photography (Tom Jessett) 2015

After the sun had well and truly gone down, we started making our way back to the Stairway to Heaven (to walk back up them, away from Heaven). On our way back, I couldn't help but stop The Photographer from standing on some of the massive crab caves so that I could pop them myself.

Light reflecting off the stairs down to Observatory Beach, Esperance, Western Australia.  Photo: © T-Rex Photography (Tom Jessett) 2015

Walking back up the Stairway to Heaven is quite long and steep - a great workout for the legs, bum and hips by the way - and we stopped on the landings to take more photos. Once we got back to the top, it was getting dark but the deep colours of the sunset were still lingering and the light on the side of the stairs was beautiful. The Photographer managed to get this last photo (above) of the stairs before we headed home. This is probably my favourite photo of these stairs and Observatory Beach.

Another T-Rex Photography session done and dusted!

Thank you for taking your time to read my waffling blog - much appreciated!

If you want to check out more of The Photographer's incredible photos, and follow our journey around Australia from this July (if all goes to plan), you can like his Facebook page and follow him on Instagram and Twitter.