Cape to Cape Day 02 – Yallingup to Moses Rock
Yallingup
The sky was bleak and overcast as we left
Camp Duckworth that morning, with squalls occasionally whipping through the area. As the three of us carried on walking south, I couldn't help but stare at the huge ominous clouds that seemed to be looming in across the ocean from the west.
We passed a junction in the trail about a kilometre in and right after that, we stumbled upon 'The Rabbits' carpark that was located on the northern edge of the town of
Yallingup. The junction that we had passed just before we came upon the carpark was where the five kilometres Wardanup Hill trail (that passes Ngilgi Cave) merged with the Cape to Cape trail.
As we descended the wooden stairwell from 'The Rabbits' carpark down to the beach below with silver gulls
(Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) and hang gliders floating gracefully in the air above us, we were engulfed by the moisture that lingered in the air from the spray of the heaving waves that were crashing into the shore just a couple of metres away. This was the closest we had been to the ocean so far and was the first stretch of beach that we had to walk across - it was to be the first of many.
At the end of the beach, another wooden stairwell brought us back up to
Yallingup Beach Road and followed the signs that were pointing to the Slippery Rocks carpark. The path we took was shared with a section of the Torpedo trail, which was a two kilometre loop that would take an estimate of 1 hour to walk along. We passed the wooden viewing platform (3.6 km mark) just when the sun began to peak through the clouds right before the trail cut inland once again amidst waist-high heathland.
We were met with the junction that turned left to the Quenda and Torpedo trails shortly after but took the right fork instead along the Cape2Cape track, which cut down to the long stretch of beach once again, past the Super Tubes and on to
Smith's Beach.
Smith's Beach
After veering up to the road (6.1 km mark), the trail continued on through a rocky section called 'Smith's Point', where we encountered a large round boulder that seemed to be perched precariously, amidst low shrubs that lined the path. The path made a quick descent down into a rocky gully before almost immediately ascending back out again as it undulated in and around the ubiquitous rocks that were scattered around. I found the contrast of the saturated peachy pink rocks that were strewn amongst the green shrubs to be very refreshing.
