Today is the last leg of the walk. Last legs should be the key word. I have found myself tired the last two days. The walk on Wednesday close to 30km seems to have used all my reserves up. Steve is the Alpha male as he seems to have boundless energy.
We departed from Cosy Corner at around 8:40am. We had a short half hour walk through the coastal heath before we came onto the beach. The beach area was quite interesting as one half of the Cosy Corner beach is a low limestone ledge that when the sea has a large enough swell would have many active blowholes. Many sections of the ledges are collapsing into the sea.
On the next headland we came across two women in their 30s who had done in 5 days what had taken us 7! Their husbands were looking after their children, and they were collected each evening, just like we were. The next major beach was Deepdene. A very long and beautiful beach. It took about 75 minutes to walk the beach, most of it being quite firm to walk on except the last 15 minutes of walking. While trying to walk on the firmer sand close to the water edge I managed to get my shoes soaked, not a nice experience.
By morning tea time we caught up with the tour party at the south end of Deepdene beach and the beginning of a long rock ledge. From the Deepdene beach we could see just and faintly, Leeuwin Lighthouse. Unfortunately we turned off the beach too early, stumbling across what is planned as a track alteration and we walked well inland on a four wheel drive track, ascending to a great height, and breathless, before we realised we had become lost. This little adventure probably cost us 45 minutes of time, and much energy. Meanwhile we returned to the beach and continued along the rock ledge, ascending from the beach front to have lunch at a lookout, joining the the large walking party for lunch. We could now clearly see the lighthouse in the distance. Just before we departed leaving the main group behind, we heard their tour leader saying that the Cumberland rocks offshore were the antipods to Washington. rather interesting.
We then had a short walk, up an incline to a ridge that took us through some quite high coastal heath. We were about 8 km walking distance from the lighthouse. Probably in a straight line it was barely 6 kms away. It became very obvious as we got close to the lighthouse that the vegetation was becoming softer and lusher, an indication of an increased rainfall. Cape Leeuwin averages just under 1000mm of rain per year.
For the last kilometre we ended back on the beachfront. We came across the book registration location and Steve signed us off. On one of the last beaches we crossed it had freshwater dripping from the cliff face at a steady rate. We both filled up one our water bottles and it tasted pretty good. After completing the last beach and visiting the lime encrusted water wheel we walked up to the lighthouse coffee shop to meet Kathryn and Nola. This was the first time we were late, arriving at 2.30pm, when we estimated 2.00pm. We would have been early if it had not been for getting lost for a short while. After a drink and obtaining our certificates for completing the walk I felt very tired but satisfied that we had completed the journey.
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