Lucky Bay

Lucky Bay is in Cape Le Grand National Park, east of Esperance on the southern coast of Western Australia. It is a five-kilometre curve of very fine white sand between granite headlands, facing the Southern Ocean.

It is best known for the kangaroos, which lie on the sand and are entirely habituated to people. They are western grey kangaroos and they are wild; the park asks visitors not to feed them, and the request exists because feeding has made some of them aggressive. The photographs that made this beach famous are all of the same handful of animals.

The sand is fine enough to drive on, and driving the beach is permitted with a four-wheel drive and tyre pressures dropped. Matthew Flinders named the bay in 1802 after sheltering here, and the granite is the same formation that produces the Recherche Archipelago offshore — over a hundred islands visible from the shore. The water is clear, turquoise and genuinely cold; this is the Southern Ocean and the next land south is Antarctica. The bay was named by Matthew Flinders in 1802, who sheltered here after threading his ship through the archipelago in poor visibility and considered himself fortunate to have managed it.

Facilities are a campground with solar showers, a café in season and a car park. Booking is required for camping and the site fills through summer. The park has other bays — Hellfire, Thistle Cove — that are quieter and require a short walk. Twilight Beach and Blue Haven, on the Great Ocean Drive west of Esperance, are reachable on a sealed road and are the versions of this coast you can see in an afternoon.

Kangaroos on the sand, water the colour of the tropics at nineteen degrees, and the Southern Ocean with Antarctica next. Drive the beach if you have the vehicle and the tyre pressures. Do not feed the kangaroos — it is prohibited and it is how a mild animal becomes a problem.