Instalment three of Project Mini Break (also known as three weekends at the beach in a row) wrapped up on Monday after the Australia Day long weekend in Hopetoun.

Hopetoun is a tiny spec on the WA south coast 160km west of Esperance. We arrived late on Friday night at my friend Lauren and Dave’s family holiday home, had a night cap and went to bed.

The next morning we had piles of toast, buttery scrambled eggs and deliciously salty bacon before hitting the beach.

The beach, to put it lightly, was perfect. The sand was not quite as white and silky as that on Esperance beaches, but the rolling mountains in the background added greatly to the view.

The water was calm and delicious, perfect for sitting in with a crisp cider.

Hours passed in what felt like moments and before long, we were a rather jolly beach bunch. As proven by a series of rather unflattering photos of everyone. Here’s a taste:

We headed back to the house for some games of beer pong:

Jugs of Singapore Slings:

And copious amounts of cheese in the absence of dinner (rookie mistake).

By about 9pm we had sung and danced our hearts out to the best of 1990s music (no doubt to the chagrin of Hopetoun locals) and most of us were napping somewhere on a soft surface.

We woke pretty early thanks to our ridiculous bedtime, Lauren cranked up the BBQ and we had sausages in bread at 7:30am on Australia Day. So patriotic.

I then went about stencilling the shape of Australia onto my Milo Cheesecake. I’m so happy with how it turned out:

Although there does seem to be a lack of Milo on the New South Wales/Victorian coastal border. Not sure how that happened. There also appears to be an oceanic crater off the coast of Victoria/South Australia.

I got the recipe from Rasberri Cupcakes.

We then headed to a different, rather sea-weedy beach to work up a hunger before lunch. We of course had the triple j Hottest 100 countdown blaring and scared off other beach goers with our fierce dance moves.

Back at the house the barbie was fired up and meatz galore expertly chargrilled.

LAMB.

This was honestly the best (and by best I mean least amount of closed eyes and derp faces) group shot I could get:

You can’t even see Laura’s face! Never mind.

The cake was pretty darn good. Rather Milo-y! But I really do prefer a baked cheesecake, I must say.

We really were living the dream. That evening we had roast lamb and potato bake, then I had to take a little nap while the others played Trivial Pursuits. I woke up just as a horrendous movie called Straw Dogs came on. Thinking we weren’t going to watch it I looked up the synopsis on Wikipedia and was horrified. I then watched all the horror play out on the screen. Think rape and someone being hit over the head with a bear trap. If you want to torture your eyeballs look it up.

Nothing like a D-list psychological thriller to help you get to sleep at night.

I was really sad to leave the next day as I’m pretty sure the Hopetoun weekend will be the last of the beach weekends for a while. Did you have a good Australia Day? Do you think Riptide should have got the top spot in the Hottest 100 over Royals?