Thursday November 10, 30.6km/19.0mi

Parry Beach Campground (839.0/13m) to Denmark town (862.1/14m) (WA) + 7.5km to Blue Wren Hostel

I left the campground at 6:45am, aiming to catch the beachwalking section at low tide, which was 6:35am.

There were plenty of people out exercising and walking their dogs.

The sunrise over the Southern Ocean looked really cool reflecting over the breaking waves.

The beach was wide here, and many people were driving across it.

The walk along Mazzoletti beach was easy on the firm sand. (It starts off as Parry’s beach, but then changes names to Mazzoletti). I noticed a small body of water to my left, this must’ve been Parry’s inlet, which everyone was concerned about crossing. Ha!

The beach was super wide here and everyone was driving on it to go surfing. There were dozens of people out in the water, they are the little black dots in the photo.

As I walked along, a friendly dog approached me and wanted to follow, so I had to tell him to sit and stay.

He was was a sad dog, he was whimpering and howling at his human who was out surfing the waves. After walking on the beach for 7km, it started to become rocky.

The exit from this beach was rather unique. The stairs were made from round erosion control haybales, and they were pretty steep, so a handline rope was provided as well.

After I got to the top of the stairs, I had a good view behind me of Mazzoletti Beach.

After walking for 30 minutes through the coastal bush I came to the William Bay campsite shelter. I took a nice long break and ate a ton of food since I had packed too much. Just after leaving the shelter, I crested the hilltop and noticed these 2 weird rock formations.

This was a tiny snake, he wasn’t a tiger snake but I’m not sure what kind he was. Likely still poisonous, since I’m in Australia.

I had been hiking in the national park for an hour, but there wasn’t a sign until I got near a developed beach.

Another nice little secluded beach.

I don’t understand why the symbol for beach was two birds, one of which is looking up at the other birds. Usually the symbol is some sort of umbrella in the sand…

The memorial bench to this person had a fantastic plaque. Who doesn’t love pi?

I left the beach area and travelled inland, crossing some farm fields, using stiles to get over the fences.

The final hiking task for the day was to climb Mount Hallowell. It was quite a steep climb, gaining 250m over 1.5km. there were some rocky outcrops along the way, this one was called Monkey Rock. There were some bolts on the rock and I checked out the climbing routes… It looked like difficult slab.

The trail kept climbing up and up, weaving through big boulders and rocks along the way.

Just when I had arrived to the top, a big cloud was quickly coming in and I could see rain in the distance. Looking Southwest:

A minute after I left the summit, the rain had started. I was happy to be back in the trees and protected from the wind, but descending on these big slabs of rock was a little tricky because they were wet and slippery. Wet slab! The 2nd best kind of slab.

It was all downhill to town, and I had entered the outskirts of the little village of Denmark. They had installed some nice benches overlooking Wilson Bay.

I followed the community trail for 6km, and it went through various little parks and sometimes peoples backyards.

I love this street name. I was hoping the cross street was named “Rock”.

I was hiking in a drizzly rain, but this sign made me smile.

I made it to the Blue Wren hostel at 2:30, where I had booked a bunk for the night. While I was waiting for the manager to return, I chatted with the other guests, most of whom were also hiking the Bibbulmun.

It finally felt like a trail town! I hadn’t seen a large group of Bibbulmun hikers since Dwellingup, when I was hiking with that big fun group. I walked over to the IGA (grocery store) and pizza shop. The downtown was only 5 blocks long but really nice.

I returned to the hostel after doing my errands, and relaxed while making dinner with the other guests, and listening to the rain pour down outside. It’s a great night to be indoors!