West Cape Howe and Torndirrup National Parks

Weather forecast was for heavy intermittent showers, but we were lucky enough to have beautiful weather until nearly noon, time enough to see quite lot of the gorgeous Torndirrup NP, and to drop into the historic whaling station to find out if it was worth visiting and when it was open. Though not long enough to go into the whaling station for a proper visit because it started to tip down just as we left there. (Never mind, we went back two days later!)

The national park is pretty big with lots to see, so doing it in two days was fine by me. Our first stop was in a national park on a peninsula west of Torndirrup –West Cape Howe NP. Though we drove through showers, when we arrived at Shelley Beach, the rain had stopped, and we got some spectacular skies as well as the scenery.

There is no 2Wd access to Muttonbird Beach and Shelter Rock so we had to make do with the lookout (and, unfortunately, the most disgusting public toilet I’ve ever seen in any country!)

Cable Beach and Cave Point Lighthouse had both scenery and greenery, so Doug was ecstatic. The lighthouse is closed to road traffic, probably permanently for safety reasons, but the area around it has been revegetated with native plants and flowers, especially banksias. And they were putting on a show for us. Many birds, especially honeyeaters, but the little blighters are really difficult to photograph, so you’ll have to take my word for it 🙂

The Gap and Natural Bridge are immensely popular for a reason – the scenery is stunning. So are the flowers.

“The Gap is an impressive rugged granite channel carved by the waves of the Great Southern Ocean crashing against the granite coastline forming a spectacular sheer drop of almost twenty five metres.”

“The Natural Bridge is a granite formation that looks just like a giant rock bridge! This ‘bridge’ is caused by the gradual wearing away of the granite rock by the Great Southern Ocean.”

The island visible off shore is Eclipse Island.

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