I DIDN’T THINK ANY PARTS of Australia were snake-free. But a little island across from the isolated seaside town of Esperance makes that claim. There are still sense-jolting rustles and leaf crackles on Woody Island, but the creatures making them have legs: it’s a haven for quail, geckos and skinks.
Armed with this knowledge, my bush hike to suggestively named Skinny Dip Bay switches from one of high alert to a safe and meditative wandering past slender eucalypt woodland, to a secluded corner of granite boulders tumbling gently into the sea. All alone, I feel at peace in this raw, yet friendly environment.
Woody Island is one in a chain of 105 isles making up Esperance’s dazzling Recherche Archipelago, and it’s the only one you can stay on. In the 1940s it became a leisure getaway and sheep-grazing site for the
