We took a chance on the weather today and headed south to D'Entrecasteaux (pronounced Don-tra-cas-toe) National Park. It is 87km from where we are staying and took us around an hour to drive there. We passed through some magnificent Kari Forests and I am simply in awe of the sheer size of these giants of the forest. These prized hardwood trees are thought to live for 300 years in the right conditions and in past centuries they were logged extensively. Thank goodness logging is now managed so that we can enjoy these trees standing in all their glory.
Our drive south took us through the small town of Quinninup and the slightly larger town of Northcliffe before arriving at Windy Harbour where our coastal walk would begin. The coastal walk is around 6km return but we decided to extend our walk slightly to Tookulup Lookout that made our walk 8kms return. We parked our car at Cathedral Rock carpark. Cathedral Rock is very close to the beach and I can imagine in summer it would be a nice place to picnic.
The walk from the carpark to the next lookout at "The Window" is uphill to a height of 100 metres but it is a gentle easy climb. Unfortunately though a coastal shower came across our path and lasted for around twenty minutes. It didn't bother us too much though as we had packed our rain ponchos. The only thing that bothers me with rain is taking the photos!
"The Window" is amazing and if our walk ended right here I would have been a Happy Chappy. We are so high above the ocean and to look through the window at the waves crashing on the rocks below, well it was just awesome.
We continued our walk around the cliffs towards our next stop, Point D'Entrecasteaux. Our path leaves the coastline for a short distance to navigate around some ugly looking communication towers. Why, why, why do the build such ugly monstrosities in some of the most beautiful places!
Every lookout is breathtaking and fortunately the rain cleared away to sunshine that made it extra special. It would have made our day complete if we had of seen a pod of whales offshore, but no luck today. Our last lookout was Tookulup that looks out over Salmon Beach. We could see people, the size of ants from where we were standing, walking along the sandy beach with its rolling surf. Another picture perfect place.
We turned around at this point and our walk back seemed to take very little time but I guess that is because we weren't stopping at every bend to take photos or GoPro. The colours of the ocean still delight us after all this time travelling down the West Coast. I said it before and I will say it again. The West Coast of Australia is far superior to any other coastline in Australia.
I can't begin to describe how lovely this walk is. We have been on many coastal walks but never have we been on one that really hugs the coast like this one does. It is truly magical and every turn of the path has you staring in wonder at the views. I would give this Class 2 walk a 10/10.
A short GoPro of our walk......
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