The sky was grey but clearing as we woke, and we enjoyed our breakfast at the Caves Hotel. We packed our back packs for wet conditions and headed off through the heritage gardens to Yallingup beach.
It wasn’t long before the sky turned a very threatening shade of grey and we stopped to prepare ourselves for a squall of rain – backpacks off, gortex jackets on, rain covers over packs. The squall passed overhead, the south-west wind picked up and turned cooler but no rain came. It never did come as the clouds blew away.
Chris declared he felt like he was in a sous-vide, with the high humidity making it very uncomfortable under a layer of gortex. It wasn’t long before we stopped again and packed the waterproof gear away.
As the weather cleared we settled into the walk, stopping often to take in the scenery and also to watch whales breaching offshore.
We speculated on when we might see the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse – our goal and the official end of the Cape to Cape walk. “Just over the next headland” was suggested – hopefully, but inaccurately. As morning tea time approached we stopped at a vaguely sheltered point in the track and explored the contents of our lunch pack, which had been provided by the hotel at Yallingup. Whale sightings kept us looking out to sea as we both attempted to spot the next whale breech.
For much of the day the walk followed a line just back from the clifftops. This meant we had little shelter from the prevailing wind; fortunately for us it was in our back and not something we had to fight against.
We walked along the final beach and began the climb towards the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse. The sandy track gave way to a paved, wheelchair-accessible one as we drew closer. A well-placed bench seat with a commanding view out over the ocean was all that was needed to encourage us to stop for lunch. Whales kept us entertained as we enjoyed our final lunch on the track.
We signed the log book provided for Cape to Cape walkers to record their achievement as our end goal came into view. It wasn’t long before we were posing for photos beneath the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse. As is often the case, asking bystanders to take a photo of the two of us doesn’t always result in a well framed shot.
The staff at the admission office allowed us into the grounds for free. They confirmed that this was something they did to support the efforts of the Cape to Cape walkers who contribute a lot to the local economy.
Our walk wasn’t quite over, as we still had to walk the remaining 2.5 kilometres to our accommodation for the night. With reasonably fresh legs conditioned by 140 kilometres of walking over the previous 8 days, we made relatively light work of the final few kilometres. It seem fitting that we concluded the walk around the arc of sand that defines Bunker Bay.
We arrived in the lobby of the Bunker Bay Pullman Resort a little windswept, sweaty and suntanned with a lot of enjoyable kilometres behind us and a lot of fantastic memories banked for sharing in the future.