Overview
If you are up for it, you can do an end-to-end almost* continuous walk from Burns Beach in the north to Tim’s thicket in the south. The total distance of this walk is just under 170km, although there is an optional first segment of 13.2km, but it involves a beach walks of about 3.5km. If you do this segment, the total walk is 183km. This section of the website describes a recommended way to do this walk over 11 days, with an average walk of 15km per day, or 12 days if you start with the optional walk.
*NOTES: 1. There are a couple of walks north of Burns Beach, but there are large areas of undeveloped coastlines north of Burns Beach, and to include these sections would require long stretches of beach walking. I have included one optional segment directly north of Burns Beach. 2. The section of coast adjacent to the Kwinana industrial area is unaccessible so is a permanent ‘break’ in the end to end nature of this walk.
The walk has been designed walking from north to south - this direction is recommended to avoid walking into the sun.
Criteria for selecting walking segments
I have used three criteria is selecting the segments for this walk:
Start and end points are easily accessible using public transport;
Start and end points have good infrastructure (toilets etc) and commercial facilities (e.g. cafes); and
Average lengths of the sections 15km, and no walk to be longer than 22km.
It would have nice to have every walk 15km but natural and human made constraints made this impossible! I did the best I could, and walk range in length from 10.6 to 21.7km - there will be easy and tough days in doing this end to end!
Planning to do the walk
The north-south Mandurah-Joodlaup passenger train line forms the ‘backbone’ of the getting to and from most of the walks, with the Fremantle line servicing a few of middle the walks, and connecting buses from relevant stations providing direct service to the starts/ends of the walks. This allows end-to-enders who don’t live in Perth to stay in accommodation near the trainline. The trains run frequently throughout each day, more so in peak hours and less so on weekends.
The bus services that link the train stations to the coast vary from being frequent (especially to major coastal nodes) to as infrequently as hourly, especially on weekends. So, planning getting to the start is vital to avoid just missing a bus and having a long wait until the next one. The Transperth app is very usual for planning your journey.
Summary of the information for each segment
I haven’t crated separate pages for each segment, as it is more convenient for end-to-endrs to have hard copies of the walking guides. You can down-load a pdf version of each guide by clicking on links below. These guides are not as thorough as the guides provided for the casual walking segments, as it is assumed that end-to-end walkers are much more experienced than some who will be casual walkers. The relevant pages of the casual walking parts of this website can be referred to if you find anything in the summary unclear.
Summary offend links to, the walk segments
The maps below show the 12 walk segments, and you can download these maps by clicking the link here or on the map -
The walks sections are as follows, and you can down load the relevant walking guide by clicking on the link:
Mandurah Estuary centre to Dawesville Village Mews shopping centre - 20.5km; and
Dawesville Village Mews shopping centre to Tims Thicket - 12.0km.
