Sunrise with the Lucky Bay Roos

Sunrise at Lucky Bay, Cape Le Grand, Esperance, Western Australia. © T-Rex Photography | Tom Jessett | 2015

Ah, early mornings, don't you love them? Nah, me neither! But when you want to see kangaroos on a beach with sand that's so fine that it squeaks between your toes, you pretty much have to go with the whole early morning thing, which is what we did on Western Australia Day.

A few weeks ago, The Photographer and I were chilling out at home, doing a few housekeeping things for our trip around Australia. As usual, his mind is distracted by conjuring up ideas on what photos he can take that day or the next day or the next weekend or whenever he has any free time whatsoever. And, in following those thoughts, he asks me, 'Do you want to go to Lucky Bay this weekend to see if you can see the kangaroos?' My immediate reaction is 'Yes!' because I haven't seen the kangaroos at Lucky Bay yet, even though I have lived in Esperance for nearly two years and been to Lucky Bay a few times before. Oh my goodness, he's offering me the chance to join him on one of his exciting and fun-filled photography adventures by seeing the kangaroos on the beach at Lucky Bay! But, there's a catch – it's going to be a sunrise photography adventure...That conversation went a bit like this: Me: 'Ohhh. Right.'Pause.Me: 'Okay, in that case, you'll have to, (1) wake me up, (2) dress me, and (3) carry me into the ute.'Pause.The Photographer: 'Okay, you can go in your pyjamas.'Me: 'Okay.' And with that, the decision was made – we were going to see the sunrise and kangaroos on the beach at Lucky Bay in my pyjamas! Woohoo! This really got my hopes up. I know I shouldn't have had my hopes though because, even though it's common to see kangaroos at Lucky Bay, it's not a given – mainly because they're wild animals and they're not on any schedule to suddenly appear to entertain tourists who have come to see them in their bog-standard, natural habitat. 

Mama kangaroo hopping away from us.

Now, believe it or not, I was genuinely worried about the whole 'sunrise' part of this trip because I am not a morning person. Usually if I have an 'option' to rise early, after waking up from the alarm, I normally end up refusing to get up (I'm a right grumpy-pants when I'm tired) and leave my poor T-Rex to go out all on his own. Actually, I don't think he particularly enjoys having me around when he's shooting; I get a bored and he feels like he has to rush. But this time, I woke up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! (So to speak.) For clarity: I'm excited. At this point, I'm thinking, 'coffee', so that I don't fall asleep on the way or while we're get there. Although, given how excited I was, I probably didn't need coffee that morning. Anyway, as I start making coffee to take away, the Photographer is looking at me sideways and says to me, 'I was actually thinking of getting coffee and breakfast from the McDonald's drive through with breakfast.' Me: 'Good thinking Batman.' So I left the cold milk in the frother and off we headed to McDonald's drive through for coffee and breakfast before heading to Lucky Bay. 

Lucky Bay, Cape Le Grand, Esperance, Western Australia. © T-Rex Photography | Tom Jessett | 2014

Driving out to Lucky Bay from Esperance takes about 45 minutes. If you have a four wheel drive vehicle, then you're allowed to drive along the beach.  I've read one review somewhere that complained that Lucky Bay isn't all it's cracked up to be as the 'best beach in Australia' because the sand is hard and compacted from everyone driving on it – he was sorely disappointed. The second part is true – the sand is hard and compacted because of everyone driving on it – but the first part is a complete misinterpretation of the fact that Esperance has, at some stage, been voted to have the 'best beaches in Australia'. However, Lucky Bay itself has never been voted THE best beach in Australia (which is obvious if you've ever visited Lucky Bay and compared it to other beaches in Esperance and many other Australian beaches – it's true, there are loads of beaches in Australia that are way better than Lucky Bay). Lucky Bay is popular because of the seemingly tame kangaroos on the beaches and the colour of the water. The fact that the colour of the water is famous, however, strikes me as a bit odd really because the water at every other beach in Esperance is that same colour – it's Esperance's standard beach water colour. Also, I think that that particular writer only visited two of the dozens of amazing beaches in Esperance and, in my opinion, having visited many of the beaches here, Lucky Bay is definitely not the best. Of the ones I've been to, my favourites would be Blue Haven, Hellfire Bay and Thistle Cove but that's a whole other post that I won't be getting into here.

 When we arrived at Lucky Bay, it was still dark but with a little glow on the horizon. We park up on the beach just to the left-hand side of the vehicle access, away from the campsite barbecue. As the sky starts to lighten but before the sun has come up over our horizon, The Photographer is noticing that all the clouds are disappearing. In normal people terms, this is awesome because sometimes it means it's going to be a cracker of a day. However, for The Photographer, it's disappointing. Why? Because he won't be able to get any epic reflections of the sunrise over the water, which isn't as good. But, because The Photographer is awesome, I know that he always gets amazing photographs no matter what the weather is doing. So, yeah – meh – I know he'll get some beautiful photos, even if he doesn't think he will! 

Looks are deceiving. That water is freezing. Lucky Bay, Cape Le Grand, Esperance, Western Australia. © T-Rex Photography | Tom Jessett | 2015

As The Photographer is setting up his camera and taking photos of the sunrise, I'm somewhere close by, jumping up and down, kicking my legs and jogging around to try and stop my toes from going numb. FYI, it's freezing at Lucky Bay at 6:00am in autumn; you need warm trousers, a jacket and warm shoes...unless you're European, then 10 degrees Celsius is toasty warm and great for swimming in the ocean in your bikini, as did the girl we saw when we were that morning! F**king nuts if you ask me. She was definitely European - Europeans LOVE swimming in freezing cold water; Australians do not. 

My iPhone camera attempt at capturing the mama and joey. Lucky Bay, Cape Le Grand, Esperance, Western Australia. 

With the sunrise photos done, it's now all about waiting for the kangaroos to appear…or not. After killing some time by driving back up and around some of the other nearby bays, we set ourselves up again on the beach at Lucky Bay. The most active times for kangaroos is dawn and dusk when they have their breakfast and dinner. I don't know what they do for lunch but I guess they graze during the day, or sleep, or hop around, or something. Around 7:40am, having still not seen any kangaroos, I'm starting to lose a bit of hope but, at the same time, probably prepared to hang around all day, just in case they do appear. I can tell The Photographer is thinking about leaving soon if we don't see any kangaroos but then he spots some movement in the distance to the west end of the beach, among the seaweed… 'KANGAROOS! IT'S A MAMA AND A JOEY! OH MY GOODNESS, I'M SO EXCITED!' We make a slow beeline in their direction, so as not to scare them off – even though they're used to humans gawking at them – because they can still be easily scared off. 

'Care to join me for breakfast?' © T-Rex Photography | Tom Jessett | 2015

As we're getting close to them, they move around and away from us but settle in another spot to graze in the seaweed. They start grazing again and we manage to get within about a metre from them and The Photographer managed to get this beauty (above) of the joey. The joey is curious and looks at us more often than his mum, which is how The Photographer managed to get this photo of him looking directly into the lens. His mum on the other hand, couldn't give a toss about us really 'cause she's just having her breakfast, it seems. 

The moment The Photographer took that photo.

Once we got our fill of photos and gawking, we started making our way back to the ute. Some of the people from the campsite came out to look at the kangaroos after we left but shortly thereafter, the kangaroos hop away back into the bush to do whatever the Luck Bay kangaroos do.

I finally got to see kangaroos on the beach at Lucky Bay!

The End!

The Photographer's photo was feature on Tourism Australia's Facebook page.

If you want to follow our journey around Australia and see more of The Photographer's talent, i.e., his photos, visit T-Rex Photography here:

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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.