The Walk - Day 2

After a lovely sleep, we awoke early feeling a bit stiff and sore, especially our calves. After hot showers, breakfast  and some stretching we are ready to hit the track. I'm looking forward to today's walk, despite the long beach walks again, as we are going to walk over Cape Hamelin and along Hamelin Bay, then into the Karri forest. I've seen some pictures of this section and the bay and forest look gorgeous. Today we will walk a total of 22.5km, with around 7km of beach slog.

Looking across Foul Bay to Cape Hamelin and Hamelin Island

Barry arrives at 8:30 to take us back to Cosy Corner Rd, our pick up point yesterday, and before we know it, we are back on the track again. The initial walking is through coastal scrub along well made firm tracks, in warm and sunny conditions. We pass Foul Bay Lighthouse, a small lighthouse that used to be located on Hamelin Island, but was relocated in 1967 to make it more easily accessed. It sits 80 metres above sea level. As we get closer to the coast again, we get beautiful views across Foul Bay to Hamelin Island.

Deb slides onto the beach at Foul Bay

The track gradually drops down to Foul Bay beach, ending with a very steep drop onto the sand. We both end up on our backsides sliding down to the beach! After a short walk along this beach, we climb up and over Cape Hamelin, getting great views across to Hamelin Island. Once over the Cape, we drop down a set of steps and walkways to Hamelin Bay. There are the ruins of an old jetty in the bay, that was used to ship Karri logs back to England in the 1890's. Some of this timber is still visible, paving streets in London!  The bay is also home to many shipwrecks, and is a favoured site for divers. Our walk instructions tell us there is a kiosk in the adjoining caravan park so we head up there for a cold drink, only to find, to our disgust, it closed 5 minutes previously, at 10:00am! We stop there anyway, on comfortable seats and enjoy a cuppa. We try to keep our backpacks as light a possible, only carrying what we really think we will need on that day. Only if it looks like raining, will we pack wet weather gear, and we adjust the amount of water we carry to suit the temperature. Water weighs 1kg per litre, so a litre saved is much easier on the back. But one luxury we won't do without is our thermos.  A hot cuppa is very reviving, whether it is cold or hot. The caravan park looks really nice, new amenities and right next to the bay which looks like a beautiful place to swim.

Foul Bay beach at high tide

The old jetty at Hamelin Bay

Looking along Hamelin Bay, we will be walking along that beach shortly

Back to the track, and we now face 6.5km of slog along the Hamelin Bay beach. Again, the sand is very soft so we try to stick to wheel tracks where possible. There are more people about here, probably because of the caravan park so we pass a few 4WD's cruising the beach. We also pass some professional fishermen, out searching for herring. They drive up and down the beach, looking for the schools of herring. When they sight them, they row out in tiny fiberglass dinghy's pulling nets behind them. The nets are fixed to their 4WD's and they row right around the school of fish, encircling them, then head back to shore. Once on shore, they join the ends of the net together and winch them ashore, bringing the fish with them. They scoop the fish into large plastic bins mounted on the back of their vehicles. Looks an easy way to catch fish to me!

Boranup Beach

Looking back to Cape Hamelin from the end of Boranup Beach

Climbing away from Boranup Beach

The Hamelin Bay beach merges into Boranup Beach and the slog continues along the soft sand. Its quite hot now and a little overcast, but still hot, hard walking. When we finally reach the end of the beach we decide to stop for lunch before tackling the climb up the dunes. While we are eating lunch a couple of families arrive to enjoy a swim in beautiful clear water and gentle waves.

Looking back to Boranup Beach

Grass Tree

As expected, the climb up from the beach is steep and sandy, hard work as we are getting quite tired now after the morning's beach walking. We then proceed along wide, sandy tracks through the coastal scrub and away from the coast. The vegetation starts to change, lots of grass trees appearing as the scrub gets taller and eucalyptus start to dominate. We pass a side track to Boranup Hill Lookout, recommended in our walking notes, but after a quick glance at one another, we keep walking. We are tired and really looking forward to the end of today's walk, another hour and a half away.

Trig Rd, moving towards the forest

As we walk further east, we enter the Karri forest and the pain of the walk suddenly eases. These trees are magnificent! The Karri is one of the world's tallest hardwoods, and can grow up to 90m tall. In this area of the forest they are much smaller, but still spectacular. The colour of the bark is what makes them so attractive to me. When the pale grey bark peels away in summer, beautiful smooth pink/orange/brown trunks remain. Their botanical name is Eucaluptus Diversicolour....very appropriate. Most of the trees here are less than 120 years old, as the area was clear felled by early timber merchants. The trees from this section of forest were used as sleepers on the Melbourne to Adelaide rail line. In 1913, most of the large trees were gone and the timber mills closed. In 1960, a large forest fire burnt out much of this forest, but the Karris survived and have thrived since. In 2001, the WA government halted all logging in these Karri forests. If you ever get the chance to visit these forests I would highly recommended it. They compare very favourably to our Mountain Ash forests around Melbourne, such as the Black Spur.

Grass Trees

Davies Rd, walking into the taller Karri trees

After a short walk through the taller forest, and a brief stop to enjoy a cuppa and admire the trees, we emerge at our meeting spot, to be met by Barry. As we head back to the motel, he stops off at a beautiful stand of Karri adjacent to the main road. The sun is getting low and as it sets, it sets the trees glowing in the pale light......beautiful.

Back at the Augusta motel, we enjoy a well earned drink on the veranda, chatting to our neighbours, before cleaning up for a dinner of Chinese take away. Two days down, and although we are feeling weary, with sore legs and thighs, we are really enjoying the walk so far.

Karri trees at sunset