Passage across the Great Australian Bight

[Kyle]Since our rigging failure and subsequent repairs had delayed us by a few weeks, the usual tailwinds across the Bight had been replaced by headwinds for the season. Getting across from Arid Bay would require careful timing. We needed to latch onto an eastbound front without getting caught in the worst of it. After spending a couple hours a day on the problem, I finally decided we would leave the afternoon just before the arrival of the next system. The normal easterly afternoon sea breeze (sea gale!) would be bent around to the north, allowing us to get away from the coast in a hurry.

The only downside was that we would be spending our first six hours in thirty knots of wind, with gusts into the high forties. I figured it wouldn't be as bad as all of that because the swell would be starting at the shore behind us and because we had no intention of sailing into it or even across it.

Apart from half an hour of tacking to get around the eastern side of Middle Island, just to the south of Arid Bay, it pretty much worked out as planned. Maryanne got the first watch. She woke me at midnight reporting that the winds had not been as bad for her as forecast. Her wind had mostly been in the high teens. We were already more than forty miles from shore.

Apart from changing course to the southeast to sail on a broad reach, I had the same experience. It was even warm enough on that first night for me to get through my whole watch in shorts.

We continued in that general direction for the next two days, eventually getting to almost 38ºS, two hundred miles from shore. As we did, the wind gradually backed until we were close-hauled in cold winds from the south. The shorts gave way to as many layers as we could fit under our foul weather gear. We each looked like puffy five-pointed stars, but we were warm in there.

The wind slowly backed some more until we were heading northeast. Going north again meant it was starting to get just slightly warmer. When the wind backed through east at the end of Day Four, it was tough to tack and turn back south again, but south was where we would be in a better position for the next wind shift, so south we went.

This time, we went fifty miles further south than last time. It was cold down there. By then, the waves had been building long enough to become what oceanographers call 'fully developed seas'. These are waves that are no longer limited by either the room or the time they have had to build. They are as big as a given wind can make them.

Since we were sailing into them, conditions aboard became quite uncomfortable, particularly when combined with the cold and damp. Neither of us was sleeping very well on our off-watches and our 'fun' time together at meals was mostly spent hanging on and wishing the weather would break soon.

We spend a LOT of time on passage watching the skies

After three more watches each, the wind finally started to veer (veer=clockwise, back=counter-clockwise). We had to follow it for another watch each before we could finally keep Begonia pointed in the direction we wanted to go and start easing the sails out. The waves gradually aligned with the new winds, making the motion aboard morph from choppy to practically soothing. We each slept like logs through our next two off-watches.

I did manage to catch one fish
. . . but when it escaped off the hook, I let it get away

On day seven, the skies were clearing, we were well rested, and Begonia was chugging along in light winds under full sail. I would have easily signed up for a few more days of sailing like this, but I knew it would never last in the Bight.

Sunsets on a passage can be especially beautiful

At sunrise on Day Eight, we finally sailed into the lee of Kangaroo Island on its north side. Then we had glorious sailing past pretty scenery on flat seas. Oh, I almost hated to let it end. Almost.

Just before noon, we pulled into the tiny cove at the mouth of the Western River and anchored on a sandy patch just a hundred meters or so from the beach. Each side was protected by craggy headlands pockmarked with caves, one of which we could clearly see was home to a flock of Welcome Swallows, darting in and out between feedings. Someone put a comment in one of our cruising apps that said the cove could fit up to three boats. We couldn't see how that could be true, unless they were talking about for lunch only on a settled day. We were pretty much taking up the whole place. We couldn't imagine squeezing another boat in and not feeling like we would have to spend all of our time on deck keeping an eye on things. As it turned out, we didn't have to and we were able to go below for a restful night.

Arid Bay

[Kyle]We left Victory Boat Harbor at our usual early hour, with our usual plan of getting as much sailing in as we could before the afternoon winds started howling. This day was the only one in the near future where we would not have direct headwinds, but instead quartering headwinds. The hope was that we would only need to do a few tacks.

Some cool clouds on passage

It worked out that way, for the most part. Most of the maneuvering and sail handling that we had to do was just to weave our way through the many islands en route. Overall, we ended up averaging only about fifteen degrees from our destination. Through the water, we sailed roughly the same distance as our previous leg to Victory Boat Harbor, but we covered almost twice as much ground in the process. Again, we were the only boat in sight.

At Anchor in Arid Bay

At Arid Bay, we anchored in a sandy patch at one end of the wide sweep of the beach. We were pummeled overnight by katabatic winds, known locally as “bullets”, that came hurtling down the smooth rock slopes behind the beach. Our anchor was well dug in and the wind turbine kept the batteries at 100% all night.

We knew there would be a lull the next morning, before a new swell came in, so we got up early and rowed to the beach for a stroll – our “one thing” of the day. In the manner of these things, we ended up walking as far as we could go in both directions, plus a hill climb or two, just for the perspective of a little height. In between, we did a little dune bashing, using trails helpfully laid down through the scrub by the kangaroos, to get us back to the beach.

Exploring Arid Bay

Rugged Views, and Kyle spots a snake on our walk back

Our lollygagging got us back to the dinghy later than we should have been. Our row to the beach had been an easy one on flat water until scraping to a stop on the sand. Now there was a barrier of breaking waves to traverse that were big enough that we knew there would be no way to get through without getting wet.

And so it was. Our usual procedure is to wait for a lull in the wave cycle and then for me to board the dinghy first. Maryanne holds the bow into the waves while I get ready with the oars. Then, she boards from the stern, one leg in the dinghy and one in the sand. At her signal, I start pulling with the oars while she kicks us off with the wet foot and then swings it into the boat.

This time, as soon as she was seated, she said, “Hold on, wave!” It was just big enough to break over the bow and then split in two as it hit my back. Oh, Damn! That water is not as warm as I would like it to be. It was the only one, fortunately.

Over the next couple of hours, the surf doubled in height and then doubled again by nightfall. That assured that we wouldn't be going ashore again at Arid Bay. That's fine. We were due for a couple of maintenance days anyway.

[Maryanne] Our time hanging out at Arid Bay was mixed. Mixed weather, mixed emotions. It was to be our last stop in Western Australia (WA) before our push to South Australia.

It was lovely to ponder our time in WA, a place we had been keen to visit, but was denied us (due to COVID restrictions); a place we only entered because of the loss of the forestay during our passage around. Expensive fixes, and frustrating delays kept us in Exmouth just long enough for the COVID rules to change all over again, and we were given permission to remain in WA but then had to rush south due to us being in the cyclone zone/season. Despite that, we were lucky enough to visit some beautiful places AND meet some amazing people. It was fun to remind ourselves of all the amazing animals we'd been 'up close' with in WA (quokkas, kangaroos, Emus).

I'm not sure when (if?) we will ever manage to return to WA, at least not in the foreseeable future. I'm especially sad we missed exploring the Kimberley (way up North). The downtime aboard allowed me to start painting the corridors inside the boat - a project that was long overdue!. While we waited for the weather to be more favourable for our passage west across the Bight to South Australia (SA).

Victory is Mine!

[Kyle]I don't anthropomorphize the weather. It's really out to get us.

My plan was to get out of Lucky Bay early, before the wind woke up. It would have worked, too, if it weren't for that meddling current!

It started out pleasantly enough. We left as soon as it was light enough to see where we were going. It felt a little bit silly putting up the main with two reefs in it in only nine knots of wind, but we weren't taking any chances. We unrolled the jib only to the first reef. In that configuration, we are good to twenty-four knots.

Once we left Lucky Bay and rounded the corner, Things picked up a little. There was fifteen knots of wind out there which, when added to our forward speed, made about twenty over the boat. The seas were still slight enough that we could slice through them with ease.

This is when tacking can actually be kind of pleasant. On a downwind route, we would have sailed a straight course through the deep middle between islands. The scenery would have pleasantly slid by in the distance. When tacking, we really get to see where we are sailing as we bounce back and forth between close-up views of this cliff and that rock and that beach. It's more of a comprehensive tour.

Our tour was going nicely enough, though our progress wasn't nearly as good as we had hoped. There was a generally strong current flowing westward between the islands. That reduced the easterly component of our forward motion even more, reducing our actual progress in that direction to somewhere between one and two knots from the three or four it would have been in calm water.

That meant that by the time we were hoping to be there, which was about an hour before the usual midday wind increase, we had only made it halfway. The initial wind increase was not unwelcome. We rolled up the jib to the next reef and sped up, which helped with our easting. After a lag, the seas arrived that had been heaped up by the new, stronger winds. Then we were stuck between the extra driving power provided by the wind and each wave trying to slow us back down again.

The wind picked up more. We rolled up the jib to the smallest we could get it and still maintain some forward drive. The hulls and cabin were pretty much continuously charging through a cloud of spray kicked up by the bows.

With just six miles to go, the wind picked up even more. It was now steadily above thirty knots and gusting almost ten more. Had we been in the open sea on passage, this is when we would have abandoned trying to sail and would have just pulled down everything until it passed. As it was, our only choices were to keep what little sail we had up, leaving us over-canvassed, or bring them down and resort to the engines. Our engines are small, and even with both going, we would not have been able to push against wind in the upper thirties by more than a knot or knot and a half. It would take us hours to get there. By then, the wind was supposed to be even stronger. We decided our best worst option was to keep the sail up so that we at least had the power to push into the wind.

Even though it was a bright, sunny day, it no longer felt like it was safe to be out there trying to sail in it. Our brisk morning sail had slowly gone to boisterous and then harrowing. Each time a gust would hit, we would grit our teeth and stare at each other, wide-eyed. All non-essential thought vanished. We were both just fixated on covering the distance remaining. We needed to get the hell out of here.

Thus, it was with immense relief that we finally passed into the lee of the hammerhead-shaped peninsula at Victory Boat Harbour. The big bay there encloses a pint-sized little bay. We headed for the smaller one and were amazed by the difference inside. We dropped the anchor in four meters of flat water over clean sand. Our masthead anemometer was only reading fifteen knots now, which was still way more than we were feeling down on at deck level. The juxtaposition between what we had been hanging on through just fifteen minutes earlier could not have been starker. It took us a good two hours before we stopped exclaiming to each other how amazed we each were that it was so calm.

First views of Victory Boat Harbour

Victory Boat Harbour is a bit of a strange name for this place. There is no marina, no moorings, no infrastructure of any kind (no normal 'harbour' facilities). As for boats, we were again the only one and appeared to be the first for some while. It is in reality just a really pretty and remote cove. The only signs of humanity were the few campers tucked away in one corner of the beach. To get there, they all had to endure a torturous 4WD ride from the nearest road.

Kyle squeezed in a trip up the mast before we went ashore

After a night of fitful sleep, we recovered our composure and headed ashore for a walk. The main goal providing our wanderings some structure was the hope that at the top of the big hill (Mt. Belches) looming over the anchorage, we would be able to get a cellular signal from a settlement on the other side. We met some nice locals, who gave us vague directions to the route leading up the hill, the gist of which was that they didn't do much hiking, but they pointed out which 4WD track should get us the closest.

Maryanne duly noted their directions. We climbed a steep incline of soft sand to get above the beach, and then she turned the wrong way. I tapped her and then stabbed a thumb at the hill behind us. She said she knew. She just wanted to see what was this way first.

There were some fun 4WD trails hidden all over

Okay. We followed a track that looked way too rough for a vehicle until we came to the top of a small ridge. There, we could see the rest of the peninsula, with its sand dunes and white beaches all book-ended by a ridge of bare rock. In the immediate foreground, just a little ahead of us. A truck perched high-centered on the edge of a sandy drop-off, its back wheels in the air. We started making our way over there to see if we could help or at least gawk. A woman was walking around with a shovel in the knee-deep sand, digging here and there around the vehicle as necessary. Before we got there, the vehicle pitched over about fifty degrees and then dropped out of sight behind the ridge. It didn't lower. It dropped. Well, this should be interesting!

When we got there, she was busy trying to muscle a couple of portable sand treads out of the track. We peered over the edge and saw the vehicle parked down by the beach. A man was struggling to make his way back up the slope on foot, sinking to his thighs and sliding back to the starting point of each step. We asked her what her plan was now. It was obviously, a: walk to the nearest town to buy a new truck or, 2: hire a barge from Esperance to retrieve it from the beach. Even a bulldozer could not climb back up that hill. She said neither of those things would be necessary. There is a much shallower route back up.

”Okay, but then WHY did you go that way?”

”We thought we would see if we could do it.”

But, of course. The first thing I would do after plunking down sixty grand on a fancy off-road vehicle is check to see if the roll bars and airbags really do work. “Honey, you paid the life insurance bill, right? Okay, then have fun!”

Having witnessed that spectacle, I turned to head back towards Mt. Belches. After a few steps, I looked back and Maryanne was gone. She was mooshing her way down the hill towards the beach. Oh, no! I know where this is going. She is going to get to the beach and then she'll want to go to the far end. Then she'll want to climb the hill behind it. Once we've done that, she'll realize that she still needs a signal and will insist on summiting Mt. Belches. I had only expected to be out for a few pleasant hours, not mounting an all-day expedition. I persuaded her with shouts and big gestures to convert her descent into a traverse to the 'shallow' road so we could continue on with our main goal.

We returned to the beach and then joined the aforementioned 4WD track to the mountain. Mt. Belches is mostly bare rock, so there is no obvious trail. We got to where we only needed to traverse about five meters of scrub to reach the rock and left the track.

From there, climbing was just a matter of finding the shallowest route up the rock face. It was basically like climbing stairs until we got to a tricky bit about two-thirds of the way to the top. There, the slope increased to over forty-five degrees and we had to pick our hand and footholds carefully until it started getting shallower towards the summit.

Up there, it was really windy, but we found our cellular signal. We needed to make one last check on the rules for traveling interstate before heading to South Australia, particularly since we were pretty sure we would not be allowed to reenter Western Australia again.

Once we were finished with our data, Maryanne said she was worried about taking the same route down and started searching for a better way to go. After a while, we found a series of cairns that seemed to indicate a path and followed them.

The cairns were great until the rock ran out. Then we seemed to be left to our own to figure out how to get through the thick underbrush. What trail there was looked very seldom used and could very well have been laid down by kangaroos as far as we knew. We didn't want to go all of the way back up to re-intercept our ascent route, so we pushed on. We were encouraged at subsequent bare spots when we would again sight a cairn or two, indicating that thing we were just on was supposed to be the trail.

Each time we were required to reenter the bush, the growth became thicker and thicker. Eventually, we were sure that we were on kangaroo trails, but we were too far along to go back now, so we just pushed on anyway. As we pushed our way through and under thorny bushes that left the bare skin of our arms and legs crisscrossed with scratches, I kept thinking about that little nugget of bush walking advice that says, 'never step where you can't see your feet'. Crikey! Half the time we couldn't see anything below our chests. Our only hope was that the commotion of two idiots crashing their way through the forest like angry bulls would cause anything dangerous to slither our crawl out of our path before we had a chance to step on it.

After a particularly horrible stretch of wading through brambles higher than we were, we finally emerged onto a relatively bare patch of dirt where we could see a clear route to the road. Woo, hoo!

That's when I decided to take a picture of the backside of Mt. Belches, now looming above us. I reached into my pocket for my phone and got nothing! After an increasingly panicky pat-down, I had to come to the realization that I had lost my phone. I had last used it before leaving the bare rock of the mountain. I was sure it was lost somewhere in the thick growth we had just crawled through.

Super lucky for me, Maryanne had started recording a track on her phone pretty shortly after the one we were walking on had become uncertain. I could use that to find my way back along the way we came. I was sure the phone must have been lost early on. By then I was too tired and dejected to want to spend a couple of hours retracing our steps, but Maryanne convinced me that we at least had to try.

It was only about twenty minutes later before I rounded a corner and saw it hanging from a bush by its little wrist strap. An arboreal pickpocket had slipped it right out of my shorts. WHEW! That wasn't so bad. I retrieved it, zipped it securely in my bum bag and started clawing my way back with Maryanne.

At the same spot as before, I decided to take a picture of the mountain. I unzipped the bum bag and my phone was nowhere to be found. NOOOO!!!! How is that even possible‽

Time to go back in there a third time, this time by myself. At least I knew it could be no more than twenty minutes back. I got almost to where I had found the phone before when I lost the trail. I had been diving under and through so many bushes that once I got to a last familiar spot, I could not remember what I had done from there. One trail dead ended in a bog that Maryanne's phone told me was somewhere I had not been before. Thanks for that, phone. At another spot, too far on the other side of our previous trail, the only possible route took me into a really creepy hollow under a tree that was blocked with interlacing branches, which nothing my size had penetrated recently. Between the two was a wall of growth that I couldn't even part. I tried a dozen times poking here and there for a way through and found myself stymied. I can't believe this! I already found that phone once and now I'm probably going to have to give up while I'm practically on top of it.

As one last move of desperation before giving up, I want back to where the trail should have been and dropped to my hands and knees to scan from that level. Then I saw daylight coming from behind one of the bushes that I could get to by crouching down and tunneling behind it. Surely, I couldn't have come that way before.

Kyle Found his phone (twice) and eventually got the picture he wanted

Indeed I had. I was now back in the slightly more comforting world of broken twigs and branches where I had clearly been before. Ten steps later, there it was. My phone was sitting on the ground right next to the branch it from which it had been hanging the first time. Again, I zipped the phone into the bum bag, which I removed and carefully examined from every angle before putting back on. Then I yanked at the strap, jumped up and down a few times and yanked at the strap again before setting off to an increasingly worried Maryanne. I got that picture the third time!

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When we finally emerged from the bush, we both agreed that it had been a long time since we have been so happy to see a graded dirt road. We were now about two-thirds of the way to the backside of the mountain. We still had a long way to go, but we knew we could get back home on the same tracks that delivered the campers to our beach. It was on this part of the walk that we learned just how demanding the driving had been for them. The road had lots of places where it was impossible to see around the corner or over the next drop. I can't imagine anyone could drive it without walking each tricky section at least twice.

After such a day, it was all we could do to rinse off the grime, grab a quick snack and fall into an exhausted sleep.

Lucky Bay (Esperance Coast)

[Kyle]Lucky Bay is part of Cape le Grand National Park. It is reputedly home to a population of very tame and photogenic kangaroos who like to hang out on the beach.

One of our guidebooks says "Lucky Bay has been voted the Whitest Beach in Australia". Oh. please! This is the type of thing that marketers say that is pretty much pure crap, but it sounds good. First of all, voting is a popularity contest and not science, Secondly, who voted for this and what were their other choices? I'm guessing that it's something like Australia Beach Magazine's sub-editorial staff picking from other well-known beaches. Or perhaps it was a straw poll of the five people at the Experience Esperance guide that were in the office that day. At any rate, my lone anecdote is that it seems like the whitest beach I have seen in a good long while, which does indeed make it quite pleasant to behold.

We really wanted to get on that beach and scramble around on the big rocks. After a thorough scan with the binoculars, we found a relatively smooth looking spot at the far windward end and decided to have a go at landing there. To save my back, which still wasn't back to 100% yet, Maryanne offered to row over there and see what she could see. She didn't take the motor out of concern that it might be damaged landing in the surf.

She hadn't made it more than a Begonia-length ahead when she gave up, reporting that it was too hard to fight the wind and chop. She reluctantly conceded to joining me in looking wistfully out the windows at that amazing beach.

The wind forecast called for lighter winds first thing in the morning, which we were hoping would correlate with easier conditions for going ashore. I was up in the pre-dawn darkness making coffee in anticipation. The wind did not seem to be any lighter. Our wind turbine only needed to work about a third of the time to keep Begonia's batteries at 100%. As soon as it got light enough to see, it was obvious the surf was much bigger, There would be no way we could get through it. Without any obvious lull predicted, we decided to move on to our next anchorage. First, on the way out, we would go to the other side of the beach by the caravan park and just see what it looks like over there.

Initially, it didn't look good. Surf toward that end of the beach seemed to be just as big. Closer in, however, we could see that the rocks at the edge were acting like a breakwater protecting a calm little cove behind. The water there is shallow and clearly mostly weed, so we opted to head for a large area of sand just outside in the smooth swell to seaward of the breakers. We could then take the dinghy into the smooth water of the little cove to make our landing.

Once we had the anchor set, we both decided we didn't like it. The waves were starting to break just outside our swinging circle and the spot where we would have to take the dinghy was far enough away that we would need the motor, which always complicates things with a beach landing. We decided Plan B would be to go back to the smooth cove and try to get our anchor down on one of the tiny spots that isn't covered in weed. With Maryanne giving directions from the bow, I maneuvered us until she had the bow roller centered on a patch of sand two meters in diameter. She dropped the anchor right on her chosen spot and reported she could even see a cloud kicked up as it hit. We both liked the new spot much better. The water was almost flat and getting to the beach would only be a short row. Plus, the rocks in the foreground make for some nice scenery.

Once everything was secured, we dropped the dinghy and headed to the beach. As we got to the depth where the oars started to hit the bottom, I was surprised to hit a hard surface instead of soft sand. When I climbed out, It was like stepping onto a sidewalk. The surface turned out not to be a thin layer of sand over rock, but just really hard sand. It was also VERY squeaky. This stuff was ten times louder than any other squeaky sand we have seen at those very special places in Australia that have it. When we pulled the dinghy out of the water, the noise of the little stern wheels rolling over the sand transmitted to the hull, which focused and amplified it like the bell of a big speaker. What came forth was a horrible grinding noise that brought to mind a seized bearing on something big, like a tractor, in the last few seconds of its life. The anchor took some took some wraggling to bury and as we walked away, we noticed that we left only the barest shadows of footprints.

At a signboard at the caravan park, we learned a few things: Firstly, I was wrong about the marketing people, although they still wrote the misleading headline. Lucky Bay beach was determined to be probably the whitest beach in Australia by an organization of scientists. The board didn't say which one, but hinted heavily that they were geologists. Then it explained the reason why:

The sand is not made up of a variety of ground rock fragments or pulverized seashell, as in most other places. Here, it consists almost entirely of tiny quartz crystals. Not only that, but almost all of these are the high-temperature beta crystals, which are six-sided, versus the much more typical three sided ones. Microscopically, these crystals can combine to make snowflake-like structures. Both ice and this type of quartz are clear, but the structure of the crystal diffuses any light striking them in all directions, making both Lucky Bay beach and freshly fallen snow appear to be white for the same reason. This crystal structure also explains why both things are squeaky when a force is applied to them and why the sand surface is so hard: the interlocking crystals are reluctant to change orientation. For this reason, it is possible to make a ball out of a handful of Lucky Bay sand. We saw one woman who had made a little mini sand man. Interestingly. If you stand in the sand when it is mixed with water, the structure is slightly more fluid. The sand still feels hard initially, but then softens up, so you gradually start sinking. I'm hoping the anchor did that when we set it and is now virtually locked in place by the crystals.

Lucky Bay wildlife

Plenty of beautiful walks, and a cafe on the beach to recover after the fact!

We left the sand on the Cape le Grand Trail towards Thistle Cove. The addition of every little bit of height improved the view as the horizon receded. Where the water covered bare sand, the light reflected was the inviting, impossible blue of glossy magazine photos of tropical atolls or Greek Islands. Above the beach we passed through zones of rock colored gray, yellow, orange and red. The contrast with the gleaming dunes below was striking.

As we climbed, we entered a giant garden, sculpted by erosion. Bald rock faces were pockmarked with caves and crisscrossed with crevices. Stains left on them by black or orange algae mark the course of draining water. Smooth granite boulders stood perched end-on, sometimes only supported by contact with one or two smaller stones. They stand as improbably oriented sentinels above the soil that has eroded away from them over eons. Filling in the gaps between bare rock was a carpet of olive green shrubs, most of which on closer inspection revealed a variety of tiny flowers in all colors and shapes. Occasionally, a Nuytsia Floribunda would burst through the low canopy, adding a splash of bright orange. These are known locally as Christmas trees, because that's when they bloom.

Although we'd missed the spring flower season, the trails were still providing plenty of flowers to discover

As we crested the ridge, the views just kept getting better and better. We were able to see almost the whole Recherche Archipelago in the distance. We descended to Thistle Cove, taking the long route that passed over and under giant slabs of granite that looked like they were one big storm from sliding into the sea.

My back was getting a little sore by then, so I found myself a perfect little armchair-sized depression in which to rest while Maryanne walked to the far end of the beach. As she receded, I watched her slowly change from a woman to a person to a dot. Below me, on the beach, families were doing typical beach things. As I was scanning the bay, I would occasionally hear chirping and would instinctively look for the bird that must be the source. It turned out to be a family playing cricket. The chirping was the sound of their bare feet on the sand as they changed directions, like rubber soles on a basketball court, only much louder.

When Maryanne's dot reached the far end of the beach, I decided I had had enough rest and so set off to intercept her on her return. Thistle Cove is like a mini Lucky Bay. The stretch of sand is shorter, but the rock formations buttressing each end are more dramatic.

We squeaked together at the bay's mid-point, where we took a side trip away from the shore into the dunes, towering above us and being held together by tufts of grass and Nuytsia Floribundas.

The walk home was even more dramatic than the walk out. The sky had cleared significantly. The direct sunlight gave all of the previous scenery an extra kiss of color that made us gasp anew at the whole spectacle. We were pretty weary by the time we finally stepped back onto the beach at Lucky Bay. Waiting for us, poking through the newly landed sea grass for fresh shoots, were an adorable kangaroo and her half-scale joey.

Once they were spotted by other beach-goers, a small group arrived to snap photos. The larger one seemed completely nonplussed by the attention. For some reason, as Maryanne was snapping photos of the joey, it bounded straight over to her, passing several nearer humans. It got so close that Maryanne could no longer focus. I thought it would jump into her lap for a scratch. That's when Maryanne looked at me and said, “Honey, take a picture!”

Oh, yeah! I had been having so much fun watching the two of them that I completely forgot that I could be taking pictures, too. Once the pair had tired of us, it only took them a few leaps and they were well out of range. No wonder the indigenous people invented the boomerang. There would be NO way to chase one down.

The wind was starting to pick up by then, which made getting back upwind to Begonia in indirect affair. We skirted the shore as long as we could while we were in the calm of the headland, taking care to stay just out of casting range of the anglers on the rocks. Then we burst into the swell for what was now the crosswind trip to the boat. With quite a large crab angle, I was able to just get us to grabbing range before the wind blew us past. Just getting aboard and getting the dinghy hoisted left us both soaked. We spent the balance of the afternoon watching the anglers not catch fish whilst, in the other direction an endless procession of utes paraded up and down the beach. Driving is allowed on Lucky Bay's mile-and-a-half long beach. The surface is better than asphalt for it, so most people seem to get to the other end in the comfort of their vehicles.

We were up with the sun the next morning in the hopes of spotting more 'roos before the traffic drove them away. It was still windy and just after thirty minutes of rain had finished. It did not seem like a nice time to be going out. As I lowered the dinghy, shivering, I kept reminding myself that yesterday had also started like this and ended up being beautiful.

We found no kangaroos. Perhaps they also didn't want to stir until it brightened up a bit. We walked all of the way to the far end of the beach. The whole time, apart from one determined runner going both directions, we saw no one else. There, we rejoined the Cape le Grand Trail in the opposite direction from the day before. Again, since our tracks were clearly the first of the day, we hoped to spot a few 'roos out for their morning munch. Again, we were foiled. Instead, we just had to content ourselves with the amazing scenery, which is dominated by the smooth granite mound of Mississippi Hill. I remarked to Maryanne that I thought it was a strange name for something whose summit must surely be higher than the highest point in what is mostly a flat state. She explained that the name was second-generation. Mississippi Hill was named after a whaler called the Mississippi. The whaler was named after the state. That makes more sense. There are a lot of non-native place names around here that are taken from ships.

My intent was to only go as far on the trail as the first crest, for the high vantage point of the bay. Once we were there, though, it crossed a big plateau covered with interesting-looking flora growing out of multi-colored sands. We decided to continue to the next corner, then turn around. There, we decided to reverse course at the next ridge. After doing this six or seven times, we finally came upon an expanse of bare rock. In wet depressions, thick, black moss had taken hold. The more mature of these also sported grasses and little flowers like little terrariums growing in their finite universes. We decided to leave the trail here, which seemed set to do the ridge/corner thing for some time longer, and headed off cross country on a shortcut toward the sea.

As we crested the last rise, the whole archipelago came into view. We went a little further until we could finally see an isolated white-sand beach below, being pummeled by surf. We tried our best to relax and take it in while we ate a snack of granola bars and water. We could see bands of rain approaching over the islands, so we decided to cut our break short and get to the leeward side of the ridge, where it would likely be much drier.

The plan worked. We only got splattered by a few drops before the sky started to clear. By the time we had rejoined the beach, the scene there was much different. Dozens of vehicles were parked, mostly facing the sea, as if they were waiting for a drive-in movie to start. The second most popular variant was to face the vehicle the other way and sit on the open tailgate.

I must say, turning the beach into a parking lot really detracts from its natural beauty. It's undoubtedly a beautiful place to take the truck, but the truck really clutters the beach. I suppose it depends on whether you are looking out or looking in. Plus, vehicles mean the beach has now become a 'road'. We are expected to spend a good part of our pleasant amble making sure we are not obstructing the vehicles, with their comfortably seated occupants. Thus, the first thing we did when leaving the trail, was to take a left turn over the rocks to the inaccessible-to-vehicles part of the bay, where we had originally anchored Begonia after the passage.

We had loads of fun alternating between squeaky patches of sand and scrambling over red and orange rocks along with the handful of other visitors who had left their utes behind. When we got to where we could go no further without committing to an off-trail summit of another big hill, then we turned for the long walk home. It was getting pretty blustery by then and I noticed one other thing about Lucky Bay's special sand: Since it sticks so well to itself, it doesn't get picked up the wind. We didnt't have to protect ourselves against the blast of stinging grains. That may explain why the beach's lone mobile culinary establishment, Lucky Bean Cafe, can position themselves so that their order/pickup window faces into the wind, where the staff can also enjoy the view. We each ordered hot drinks and a little snack in order to refortify ourselves for the dinghy ride home. It was nice to be able to sit there in one of their beach chairs and enjoy my toasted sandwich without having to pretend to ignore the crunchy beach texture.

In our absence, the wind and chop had uprooted large amounts of the sea grass in the area where Begonia was lying at anchor. It had blown ashore and blocked in the dinghy from the sea with a ridge of weed as high as the gunwales. It was now at the bottom of a weedy crater. There was no way we could keep from bringing it aboard on our legs and feet as we boarded. Rowing back, we looked like we had bought the special, Lucky Bay High-vis/Camo version of the Pudgy.

For all of the time that we have been here, Begonia has been the only boat in the bay. Looking at all of the caravans parked next to each other in their campsites, only a few of which have a view of the sea, it was hard not to think we had by far the very best spot. We indeed do feel very lucky.

It was almost exactly the same spot used by Matthew Flinders to anchor the HMS Investigator 219 years and five days earlier while exploring this coast. Usually, due to the dangers of shore, he chose to go to sea and spend the nights there in the safety of deep water. On this particular afternoon, though, he realized he didn't have time to make it all of the way through the intervening islands and started looking for an anchorage. He spotted the bay, entered, and Investigator dropped anchor at 1900hrs, less than ten minutes before dusk. He thereupon dubbed it 'Lucky Bay' for their good fortune in finding it just in time.

Incidentally, Thistle Cove was named after Ship's Master John Thistle. Forty-two days after Investigator anchored here, the ship was charting the coast near Port Lincoln in present-day South Australia. Thistle was returning to Investigator just before dusk with a shore party of seven others in choppy seas when the launch capsized and all were lost. The bodies were never recovered. Flinders then named the adjacent headland, 'Cape Catastrophe' and the nearest island was also named Thistle Island.