Raining in Esperance

Esperance, Thursday 10 May 2012

You can only get into and out of Esperance on three days each week. As a consequence, I arrived from Kalgoorlie (after a five hour bus journey) at 19:30 on Wednesday night and left at 08:00 on Friday morning for Albany, giving me the grand total of one day to explore this spit of a town on the Southern Ocean.

Esperance was originally charted by the French, hence the name Esperance, but was settled by pioneer families a little later. Now it has a major ocean-going port responsible for the export of ore, a resident sea lion called Sammy, a Dome (because everywhere in WA has a Dome, they’re a bit like Starbucks here), and some of the very best beaches in the world. We’re talking glistening white sand being lapped by deep blue ocean. They’re stunning.

Except that I didn’t get to experience them.

It rained for the entire day. I had planned to hire a bike and cycle the coastal path, but lashing wind and rain put paid to that idea. As it did joining a boat tour of the 117 (or something like that) islands just off of the coast, or heading up to the National Park. That’s the problem with visiting remote towns in the off-season; if the weather’s bad, there’s nothing to do. There’s probably not much to do in bad weather in the high season, either, but at least there are other people to laugh with about your ridiculous misfortune. For truly, bad weather in WA during the summer is an incredible rarity.

Sammy the sea lion had done a bunk, the islands were invisible through the rain, even the ships in the harbour were shrouded in precipitation. All that was available to me was a trip to the museum. Even that didn’t open until 13:30.

But oh my, what a museum it is. It’s operated entirely by volunteers, and bless their every good intention, not one of them has a clue about curation. It’s a museum in a the classical sense: a collection of objects, curios, and artefacts thrown together for some amalgam of preservation and public edification. It feels as if they are determined to exhibit absolutely anything and everything that might have the slightest relevance to Esperance, no matter its interest, its condition, or the museum’s capacity to display it properly. Essentially, it is three large rooms crammed with stuff, including a train locomotive.

As a consequence, there are collections of glass bottles, belt buckles, barbed wire (yes, really, bits of barbed wire), rusting iron nails (when you’ve spent a week counting and rebagging ancient iron nails for Cambridgeshire County Council Archaeological unit, you’re quite content never to see another one again), and I kid you not, ceramic frogs. Honestly, some terribly well-meaning woman donated her entire collection of ceramic frogs to the museum. I cannot for a moment fathom why.

There’s a huge amount that’s of value sequestered away in this museum. There’s original pioneer furniture, clothing, and machinery. There’s the entire contents of the General Store, circa 1940. There’s a blacksmith’s forge, a collection of pianos, and about 20 typewriters. Unfortunately, none of it is properly preserved, labelled, or displayed. Not to mention butter churns, rotivators, sea shells, boats, and plough horse harnesses.

The sheer volume of artefacts is overwhelming and without any kind of coherent display or supporting information, it’s just an Aladdin’s Cave of wonders that feels more like a antiques shop run by a batty old woman with one hundred and thirteen cats for company.

They’re more intent on telling small children not to touch things than they are explaining properly what the objects are. When I did a stint at the City Museum in Bristol, I very quickly became a convert to the principle of ‘Less text, more artefact,’ but there has to be some supporting information and you have to have some clue about the artefact and why it’s on display. What it is that makes it significant and at least a lever into its story.

This is a museum with so much potential that it’s groaning. But without real direction and a a clear vision of what it is trying to achieve, it’s a warehouse of stuff.

Jeez it would make for a great project.

As for where I stayed, the Western Heights B&B has to be the most charming place that I’ve stayed on this trip. It’s a two-room bed and breakfast slightly out of Esperance town, with the most incredible views over the harbour. It’s run by a woman called Joan who does it for something to keep her occupied. I suspect that she likes the company.

She collects you from the bus stop, runs you into the town when you want to get there, picks you up when you want to get back again, and has a space-age toaster. Admittedly, there’s probably only one taxi serving the whole of Esperance and its 10,000 people, which includes the surrounding area, but it’s still incredible service.

I had a super-comfy double bed, use of a bathroom that was as big as the bedroom, and my own sitting room that had a selection of DVDs and, wait for it… VHS tapes! Breakfast was a feast served looking out over the bay, and it was all rather wonderful. It cost $110 a night. That’s about £70. So it’s not cheap, but then nothing in Western Australia is.

If you’re ever in Esperance, go stay with Joan at the Western Heights Bed and Breakfast. You will not be disappointed.