Two peoples bay

Two peoples nature reserve is about 35km east of Albany, it’s all bitumen roads to get there and you can easily spend the whole day here. There are numerous walks to do and there’s a visitor centre which is only open during the summer months. Word of warning, as with many reserves and national parks lately, they have large signs at the entrance saying “If you have a dog in your vehicle turn around now”. This was my second visit, this time around I left the dog behind.

The issue of feral animals in the reserve is important as the area is home to some critically endangered animals. The Gilbert’s potoroo is Australia’s most endangered animal and was thought to be extinct for many years before being rediscovered at two peoples bay, it’s the only known place they exist. Same with the noisy scrub bird, it was thought to be extinct until rediscovered in the same reserve in the 60’s.

The reserve is extremely well set up for visitors with many barbecues and picnic tables, rubbish bins, clean toilets, lovely shady areas to sit or wander through the bush, what more could you want?

How about some beach? Unfortunately there’s not really much beach to be seen in two peoples bay at the moment, there’s a thick layer of weed covering the beach in both directions for as far as you can see. This may just be because of recent storms over winter, there’s some lovely white sand under the weed.

Still if you want to see nice white sand just a couple of hundred metres back up the road was the turn off to little beach, this is where you need to go!

Little beach has super fine super white sand, that squeaky sand which makes a noise with every step you take, it also has the bluest of blue water, real turquoise blue. Strange when you think that just in the next bay it’s all mounds of weed and nothing very exciting.

You really should walk along the beach and up over the small headland to see into the next small bay.

This next bay is just as beautiful as the first perhaps even a little better depending on what you like. It is harder to get down to the beach here, you have to clamber over some rocks, so less people actually go down to the beach. The first beach is just all sand with a big rock in the middle, when you climb down to this beach you’ll find a lovely little water fall and a number of other spots where water is seeping out of the hillside onto the beach.

The water was beautiful to drink and the rock formations around this side are far more exciting.

I climbed part way up the final headland on the far side of this bay but the climbing was hard and I decided to turn back before reaching the top, there are no real tracks here.

Notice the sand collapsing down onto the beach. All of the hills around here are yellow sand, there’s a clear line of where the white beach sand ends and the yellow dune sand begins. I wonder, does the yellow sand bleach white after it’s uncovered and falls on the beach?

Do yourself a favour, if you are anywhere near this area, make the effort to come and spend the day at two peoples bay, I’m going to go back to do some of the walks to explore the bush around the area some more.