On Walkabout At: Leeuwin-Naturliste National Park

Scenic Cape Leeuwin

The most southwestern city in all of Australia is the city of Augusta. Augusta is a small but pleasant town, but it is situated on a spectacular coastline:

What was really nice about being here in the extreme southwest was the amount of sunlight. It was a bright beautiful sunny day when we reached Augusta. During our time in the karri forests it rained every day and when it wasn’t raining it was usually overcast. However, once we exited the forest and reached the coastline the clouds were gone and the weather couldn’t be any better.

From Augusta we traveled south down a winding road to the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse. The lighthouse is situated on a peninsula that is the southwestern most point in Australia:

Cape Leeuwin is named after a Dutch ship that visited the area in the early 1600’s. The cape’s environment and historic buildings are protected as part of the Leeuwin-Naturliste National Park. I parked the campervan along the coast here and walked up to the lighthouse:

Before you reach the lighthouse you reach a historic community of old fishermen homes that are now abandoned, but one of them has been turned into a museum, gift shop, and cafe:

Here is a closer look of the lighthouse:

The lighthouse was constructed in 1895 and is still in operation to this day. It is interesting to compare this lighthouse to one built fifty years earlier at Cape Otway to see how the construction styles of these early lighthouses progressed.

The lighthouse is surrounded by coastal scrub that is filled with beautiful flowers:

Not to far from the lighthouse is a sign recognizing the peninsula as the southwestern most point of the Australian continent and differentiates between the Indian and Southern Oceans:

If you are wondering, in Australia they believe in a fifth ocean they call the Southern Ocean, which stretches from southern Australia to Antarctica.

The White Sands of Hamelin Bay

After finishing checking out Cape Leeuwin I walked back to the campervan and my wife and I headed off to a beach just north of Augusta which we heard was a nice place to visit. It took us less than hour to reach the beach at Hamelin Bay:

The white sand at Hamelin Bay was really nice and the beach was large and quiet. Just another example of a beautiful beach in Western Australia. Something that we saw on the beach that we hadn’t seen before, was the amount of clams that washed up on the beach:

Clam chowder anyone?

Hamelin Bay is more than just a nice beach, it also a place of some historical interest as well. There is supposed to be a large number of shipwrecks in the bay which may explain the number of scuba divers I saw out in the water. Also the ruins to a large dock is still visible from the beach:

This dock used to be able to support rail cars that were filled with logs from the lumber mills in places like Pemberton I had visited earlier. The logs were loaded on to ships from this dock. However, the poor weather and dangerous shoals in this area along with the opening of larger docks in Freemantle led to the shut down and abandonment of this dock.

Next Posting: Margaret River

Prior Posting: The Gloucester Tree

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