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Esperance photographs

Esperance, WA.

Population - town 10,500; rural areas 3,500 Annual rainfall - 619 mm. Temperature average - Min/Max - 12/22. Esperance is the service centre for the surrounding very successful grain growing region. It is also a port for grain and for iron-ore and nickel concentrate bought by train from far inland for stockpiling in the Port of Esperance before being loaded onto bulk-carrier ships. Esperance also serves as a seaside resort for Kalgoorlie-Boulder and the surrounding goldfields. The town is the easternmost township on the south coast of Western Australia. Further east lies the semi-arid coast of the Great Australian Bight. First white settlers arrived in 1863 when the Dempster brothers travelled overland from Northam with their sheep, cattle and horses to take up a pastoral lease of 304,000 acres. The Overland Telegraph arrived in 1876, there were five telegraph stations at Bremer Bay, Esperance, Israelite Bay, Eyre and Eucla. The town of Esperance was established in 1893 as a port for the Coolgardie goldfields and boomed for a few years until completion of the railway line from Perth to Kalgoorlie in 1896 provided a more convenient way to reach the goldfields. The hotels, breweries, stores and guest houses which had sprung up to cater for the miners diasppeared overnight and Esperance was reduced to a holiday resort and fishing village. Attempts were made to open up the area around Salmon Gums as wheat farming land in 1912 and 1924 but the drought of 1914-15, the Great Depression and the light sandy soil thwarted the development. The 1949 discovery by the Gibson Research Station at Esperance Downs that the local soil only needed additional trace elements to make it fertile removed the obstacle to successful large scale grain growing. This simple discovery ultimately turned the area into a successful producer of wheat, sheep and cattle. The success of this venture is vividly expressed in the fact that in 1954 there were 36 farmers on about 8,000 hectares and by the mid 1980s there were 600 farmers utilising over 400,000 hectares in the Esperance region. Agricultural production now concentrates on wheat and barley grown in rotation with lupins, canola and subterranean or medic pasture. Some agricultural enterprises are adopting soil or site specific land uses such as perennial pastures for improved soil-water use. Other land uses for niche areas under development include farm forestry (blue gum and Pinus pinaster plantations), olives, inland aquaculture and wildflowers. One successful vineyard has been developed in the region. Information: http://www.scipt.asn.au/subregion_sandplain.htm

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