Cape to Cape Trail

Ben's back on the trail. This time he and Jake traveled the Cape to Cape Trail located in far south west of Western Australia. The Cape to Cape Trail runs 135 km (84 miles) along the coast from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin. Photos from Ben and Jake's Cape to Cape Trail Adventure.

Cape to Cape Trail Journal

Day 1

17th May 2008

Cape Naturaliste to Moses Rock Camp Site

~35km / 22miles

I had a frantic day at the office yesterday, working in a blind panic until 4pm when I flung a mass of paperwork at my boss, threw some shorts on and dashed out of the door in my socks to meet Jake for the arranged 1605 pickup - Jake detests tardiness.

A three and a half hour drive to Dunsborough and a night at the YHA hostel followed. The hostel was good, but slightly spoiled by the usual UK/European backpackers drunkenly crashing about at 4am.

Our taxi too the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse was piloted by an amusing old cove, who assured us that there was nothing dangerous on the whole trail. Dunsborough is heavily endorsed by former Australian international seam bowler Brendon Julian - many billboards sport images of him enjoying Dunsborough, "there's nowhere I'd rather be!" apparently.

Hiking today was very pleasant. Huge waves crashing on sandy beaches with plenty of surfers and dolphins to enjoy them. We made decent progress after our 9am start. Not too much climbing, but the beach sections were a little draining on the legs. The scenery was mostly lovely, but we had a few kms on dull, if easy jeep trails to slog along.

We're camping at the Moses Rock campsite - we haven't seen many other places to easily pitch a tarp. Amenities run to a privy, picnic bench and rainwater collection tank. All are welcome. We dined on Kraft mac and cheese - different to the US version in that the cheese is sealed in a small tin can - augmented, if that's the word, by the addition of some gnarly, sweaty salami.

We retired to the tarp around 7pm. Jake seems pretty stiff and very tired and has a couple of blisters. He was asleep by about three minutes past seven. He'll get used to it.

Finding a place to stay tomorrow could be challenging. There are no similar camp spots marked at a sensible distance from here and the lack of trees could cause us to break out the untested solution of pitching with a couple of old tent poles we brought as backup.

As soon as darkness fell, the mosquitoes came out. The place is SWARMING with them.

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Day 2

18th May 2008

Moses Rock Camp Site to Prevelly

~34km / 21miles

Wacky dreams all night as I drifted in and out of sleep (but always remaining within the dense, hungry cloud of mosquitoes). Up and out without drama. Jake wasn't moving particularly freely to begin with and has already taken on a shuffling thru-hiker-about-town gait whenever we stop for a little while. Still, he made it through the day just fine.

It rained a bit and wasn't a particularly inspiring day of weather. We stopped for a mid-morning sandwich at the the gas station/store in Gracetown and ate lunch outside the Ellensbrook homestead (but declined the $4 tour, despite the young lady guide being easy on the eye).

Some nice stuff to see, but also some trudging on jeep tracks. The "sometimes dangerous" crossing of the Margaret River mouth was less dramatic than expected. It's still too early in the year for the flow to have become significant enough to require wading through nipple-deep with pack carried over head. Rather, the river just stopped about 30 yard short of the sea and we strolled across dry sand.

Tonight we're paying to stay in the caravan park in Prevelly. It's ok. We bought snacks and beer at the store and limped over to the restaurant for good pizza. I'd already cracked my first pale ale open before the hostess informed me that it wasn't BYO beer. The result was that I was saddle with a couple of undrunk bottles when we returned to the tarp that I was forced to chug before sleep. Probably not ideal.

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Day 3

19th May 2008

Prevelly to Boranup Beach

~36km / 22miles

Rain in the night and I made a 2am sortie from the shelter to deal with the aftermath of three bottles of Coopers and to lower the tarp to stop the rain blowing in. More crazy dreams and a start delayed slightly by the desire to make the most of the flush lavatory facilities on offer. Getting back to the trail was via a trudge up a muddy firebreak to the communications tower on the ridge.

Made solid enough progress, but Jake wasn't best friends with his feet and I developed a couple of blisters too. The wet, scratchy plants either side of the trail are encroaching nicely and it's not fun walking through them. I don't know the name of the worst culprits, but I have christened them "razorweed".

Another mix of beaches and fire roads for the most part, though we had a pleasant section through Boranup forest, which was cool and shady and home to the gnarliest, most terrifying spider I've ever seen. He was sat in the centre of his web, blocking the entire trail (well, not the actual trail - we'd gotten slightly lost and were running on a parallel trail at the time). I probably would have walked straight into him, staring at my feet as I do, but for the fact that minutes before I had walked in a similar, but thankfully unoccupied, web.

We ummed and ahed about stopping short today, hiking another short day tomorrow, and finishing on Wednesday morning. We went pretty well though, so shall push on to finish tomorrow. We have a long beach section ahead, which may be lovely or very tough, depending on the state of the sand.

We are camped on the beach tonight. I picked up a sturdy stick in the forest and carried it here to help with pitching the tarp. We've pitched up pretty nicely between the stick and a very convenient rock that happens to have some convenient holes through it, perfect for tying up to. We're using Jake's sand stakes and they're vastly better for this than regular stakes. We should be just fine so long as we've judged the high tide mark about right....

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Day 4

20th May 2008

Boranup Beach to Cape Leeuwin / Augusta

~35km / 22miles

The shelter worked very nicely - the sand stakes held firm and the sea kept a respectful distance. Yet another indifferent night's sleep - probably just because we went to bed at 6pm. I wasn't bothered as badly by mosquitoes as I finally remembered we had bug repellent and liberally doused my face and hands.

Some barefoot beach walking to start the day. We met a group of guys out fishing and chatted briefly with one of them. He showed us their catch - several enormous salmon that they'd caught with lines from the beach - before we pressed on to a short dunny/snack stop at Hamelin Bay campground. We passed some excellent blow holes today - cylindrical holes, about a foot in diameter, running down through the rock to the sea, several yards below. Waves, crashing in, forced water up and out through the holes with amusing vigour. Less amusing was the sulphurous reek of rotting seaweed that accompanied many of the day's seaside sections.

After a brief inland foray, we had a marathon beach section - made vastly easier by being able to walk in the compressed sand of 4WD tracks for most of the length. By now our objective, the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse, was visible in the distance - though it seemed very reluctant to get any closer. We had one final 8km dart inland before being emerging just a short scramble over rotting seaweed and stroll along the spit from the endpoint.

We had timed it pretty perfectly as a big bank of dark, thundering cloud was rolling in when we arrived. We got coffee from the visitor centre and ordered a taxi from the mobile number listed in the guidebook - a hitch would be very possible from there, but we were keen to beat the storm. Our ride arrived in the nick of time and whisked us to this very decent hostel where we've taken a twin room for the night. Dinner was courtesy of the Twin Oceans fish and chip shop, where we dined in and dined well on jumbo seafood platters to celebrate our completion.