With a little help from the tide

Following advice from someone that it was possible to walk from Quarry Beach (which astonishingly is still open) to Secret Beach at low tide we took that walk on 9 March.  Here is the route:

Getting there at 2:30 the tide was indeed low.

 This is the gap in the rocks between the two beaches.  When the tide is higher this is quite deep, but it would be possible to access Secret Beach by climbing the rock off to the left of the image.

 An attraction of Secret Beach is the cave.  This is the entrance on the East (town) side.  I suspect that on a higher tide it is completely under water and it would be partially flooded on any high tide.

 There is a surprising amount of light inside.  Also many foot and paw prints in the wet sand.

 Looking back out through the East entrance.

 Much folding in the rock.

 The West entrance.  Its about 1.5 m high, so not a struggle to get in.

I found that it was possible to scramble over the rocks at the West End of Secret Beach to get onto Pebbly Beach,  I'm not sure that would be a wise thing to try at high tide with a bug sea running.

Heading back we prowled around the rocks between Secret and Quarrybbeaches.  A good array of kelp in this area.

 The sea was quite vigorous  so here are a couple of breaking wave images.

At the base of these rocks some curious red-orange items were seen.  Frances waded out to look and concluded they were animal rather than vegetable but that is about as close as we could get.  I'll call them 'polyps'.

A cooperative Australian Pied Oystercatcher with flag 85.  This was put on by the Victorian Wader Study Group at Corner Inlet on 14 August 2010 when the bird was 4 years or more of age.  Thank you Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme for that information.

This bird was cooperative, but the flag was less so and I couldn't get a read of the number.  Definitely 2 of the 7 birds had flags.

Mussels are always cooperative.  Come in large numbers and stay put!

Some get passengers.  (Fun fact: barnacles are crustaceans not molluscs.)

Other mussels just get festive strands of algae.

A very pleasant walk.