Peaceful Bay

One of the many treasures of Southwest Australia is the Bibbulmun Track, a "tramping" (Aussie slang for bush walking) trail that runs 465 kilometers from near Perth to Albany along much of the coast and through several National Parks. Charlie and I were eager to tramp along at least a section of it, and so we went to the invitingly-named Peaceful Bay. Unfortunately, we found that the particular section of the Track that we chose was not well maintained. Charlie repeatedly performed trail maintenance by pushing or cutting back branches and pulling out new growth in the middle of the track, while simultaneously trying to avoid walking into spider webs and/or the very large spiders themselves. The track also was tantalizingly close to the beach - you could hear the waves crashing down just on the other side of a sand dune - but we were on the wrong side of the dunes and could see the ocean at all. So, after walking a while, we turned back and thought we would instead head straight to the beach.

On our way back, we noticed some animal poop - big round pellets, like rabbit poop, but each was the size of a golf ball, if not a bit larger. From Charlie's background working in outdoor education, he noted that the big pellets did not contain any fur or bones, which indicates that the animal was a vegetarian. What animal could possibly produce such large poop and be a vegetarian? A kangaroo! We saw kangaroo poop! I never thought I would type those words or be so genuinely excited about it.

The beaches along Peaceful Bay all have their own names, like the very descriptive, "Sandy Beach." They were all beautiful and deserted. It turned out that the beaches themselves also were part of the Bibbulmun Track. So we got our wish.