Introduction to Perth's coastal walks - a personal project

Perth is famous for its beaches, whether it be popular swimming beaches like Cottesloe (Plate 1) or isolated beaches like Cape Peron (Plate 2).

There are also many coastal tracks and paths, which form an almost continuous trail from Mandurah in the south to Yanchep in the north.

My partner, Clare, and I decided to walk as many of these tracks and paths as possible by doing two hour Sunday morning walks.

This website provides information for people who would like to walk along Perth's coastal paths and tracks.

As well as describing each walk, I will also provide information on the points of interest I noticed on the walk, where to have breakfast, and where the toilets are. Here are the conditions we set ourselves for our walks:

Walks should be between an hour and a half to two hours in duration, which, based on a walking pace of 12-14 minutes per kilometre, is around 8 kms;
The walks need to be out and back - i.e. around 4 km out and 4km back; and
We start the morning with a cooked breakfast at a cafe

All photography provided by Garry Middle

Plate 1: Cottesloe Beach

Plate 2: Cape Peron

Purpose of the website

The website provides information for people who would like to walk along Perth's coastal paths and tracks. As well as describing each walk, I will also provide information on the points of interest I noticed on the walk, where to have breakfast, and where the toilets are. Here are the conditions we set ourselves for our walks:

1. Walks should be between an hour and a half to two hours in duration, which, based on a walking pace of 12-14 minutes per kilometre, is around 8 kms;

2. The walks need to be out and back - i.e. around 4 km out and 4km back; and

3. We start the morning with a cooked breakfast at a cafe.

The tracks we walk on

These coastal walks are primarily on constructed and ‘official’ tracks and paths, and in more remote areas, well used sand tracks that don’t go through sensitive areas. The only times we walk on the beach is either where there is no option - i.e. there is no ‘official’ path or track - or there is a something of interest on the beach, or the available sand track goes through a sensitive area.

The tracks and paths are mostly bitumen (Plate 3), sometimes concrete especially at the popular beaches (Plate 4), crushed limestone (Plate 5), and sand tracks (Plate 6). They can be very close to the beach with open views of the ocean (Plate 7), well away from the beach with ocean views only on the hills (Plate 8), go through areas of low lying scrub (Plate 9), or through woodlands/low forest areas (Plate 10).