Day 2 - Park Entrance to Sleaford Mere: Overnight in the dunes of the Jussieu Peninsula

Written By Helen McKerral

We would like to acknowledge the Barngarla people, the traditional owners of the land on which we walk, and pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are present today.

Today would be a shorter 9.7 km walk past Brian Clarke Hut, camping at the coast a little way east of Miller Hole: perfect!

 
Hiker walking along a 2 wheeled car track with thick shrubs either side of the track.. The sky is covered with light grey clouds.

We head west towards Wanna Road and then onto the Brian Clarke Hut Track. It is pretty much the only significant climb we have, and it is just 100 metres or so.

Pittosporum phylliraeoides – Native Apricot.

They look delicious but aren’t edible.

Hiker with orange backpack looking across the national park towards a bay and hills in the distance.

From the top of Brian Clarke Hut Track, more views: northeast towards Kaitjaba (Stamford Hill)

Hiker with orange backpack looing towards coast across dense vegetation, then sand dunes and finally a small bay with coastal cliffs on the opposite side.

And south to the spectacular dunes of the Jussieu Peninsula, where we are heading today.

A native millipede coloured black with light brown hoops

Native millipede

There are lots of these about

A small tree sided hut with sleeping platform. There is a picnic table in front of the hut and a rainwater tank on the side..

Brian Clarke Hut.

A sleeping platform, but the water inlet to the tank appeared blocked. This tank was either empty, or blocked at the bottom. You could do a water drop where the trail crosses Wanna Road.

We reach the dunes!

This is the only place we briefly lose the track, as many others have: a pad leads to the right, rather than towards the sand blow. This track peters out. We backtrack and push our way through scrub – the track is overgrown.  Looking back from atop the dune, the path we should have taken is clear.

And oh my, here is the vast dune system.

Wow!

Emu coming…

or going?

Two hikers in the background walking across the sand dune. They are walking along wheel tracks.

This area allows 4WD, and we follow wheel tracks.

Two hikers sitting on the top of a foredune looking out to sea whilst eating their lunch

We reach the sea - a perfect spot for lunch before we descend to the beach.

Hiker walking along beach with sand dune on their right and sea on the left.

Beach walking can be windy and tiring, but neither are the case today. It’s fantastic.

And we have the entire 4 km of sand to ourselves!

Hiker walking along a narrow section of beach with limestone cliffs on their right.
Hiker walking up face of dune at the end of the beach.

The trail ducks back up onto the dunes when the cliffs start.

And here, almost as soon as we start following the trail along the cliffs, we find a grand campsite.

There are two flat spots just right for our Duplex (Birgit) and Stratospire Li (us).   We need rocks as the sand is too soft to hold the groundhogs.

The waves will lull us to sleep tonight!

Stormy, squally, beautiful skies all around us. We sit amongst the dunes, soaking it all in.

Helen McKerral
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Day 1 - Park Entrance to Sleaford Mere: Overnight near Pillies Hut
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Day 3 - Park Entrance to Sleaford Mere: Sleaford Mere