A beautiful dinner last night provided by our host, Andrea, after a couple of drinks at the pub set us up for a great night’s sleep. We were both up pretty early, excited I think about our first long walk in a while. Andrea picked us up at 8:30am and by 9am we’d had the obligatory photo at Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse and were on our way.
The first lot of rain hit us at the Waterwheel and then lots of slippery rocks until we were past Quarry Bay, which made very slow going. From there we climbed up above the Augusta cliffs and had a beautiful walk for the next 6kms or so, stopping for lunch near the end of the cliffs at about 11:30am. We’d passed a seat at the 4km mark and though there would be many more (we’d seen seats every km or so until that time) but it was the last one for today so we used our hiking seats – a bit low and awkward but better than nothing!
From the end of the cliffs it was a bit of a nightmare! First some sand dunes and then a lot of clambering over rock platforms before hitting the southern end of Deepdene beach at just under 10km. Although the Cape to Cape book is written north to south our walk is designed to go south to north in order to benefit from the prevailing south westerly.
Today was a howling WNW breeze at between 25 and 30 knots so the next 6 km or so was a real struggle! The rain hit us at Turner Creek, which was flowing quite strongly, so we donned our ponchos again and then decided to try crossing the creek when the receding waves sucked most of the water out. You can guess what happened – we both got very wet boots!
We reached the end of Deepdene Beach just before 3pm and about 17.5 km into the walk. We got rid of the ponchos, which were really more of a hindrance than anything else and had a quick bite to eat before the final leg. This was also quite challenging, albeit less so that the beach, round Cape Hamelin, a bit more beach and finally a rock platform with a bunch of blow holes, before heading sharply uphill to Cosy Corner Rd. Andrea picked us up at 4:30pm with just under 21 km under our belt. All in all a good first day with the highlight being the bushy track above the Augusta cliffs, which were full of wildflowers!
steelewalking 
Sounds exhausting guys but I reckon your up for the challenge rain hail or shine. 👏
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Hopefully the trail will get easier after the tough introduction on day one . What doesn’t kill you … right ?
Catch you tonight for dinner .
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