Some well-meaning 20th/21st century humans have viewed the pictured dunes as an unfortunate byproduct of 19th and/or 20th century overclearing and overgrazing.
In fact, this particular dune field was already part of the local landscape long before Europeans reached any part of Terra Australis.
Since 1983 my beloved and I have seen these dunes very many times, just a few minutes before we’d reach Two Peoples Bay.
By (good) road, Two Peoples Bay is a little more than 40 kilometres east of Albany.
As a number of Pelican Yoga posts have illustrated, the great sweep of Two Peoples Bay is glorious, and the little beach tucked in its southern “corner” – Little Beach – is one of “our” planet’s loveliest.
My photo was taken late on the afternoon of 10 February 2022, en route to Little Beach.
The dunes are much closer to Nanarup Beach than to the actual Two Peoples Bay, but they are within Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve.
Immediately in front of the dunes is Moates Lake.
If we had arrived some thousands of years earlier, the photo’s vantage point would have had us looking across an estuary, to the edge of the Southern Ocean.
Below, you can see exactly where the dune field now sits within the local landscape.
If those who “misread” the dunes had payed a little more attention to the nature of the dunes’ sand, to the dunes’ proximity to to the ocean, and to the prevailing winds’ direction….
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