Tag: Deep South WA

Waychinicup’s inlet is shallow and sheltered.

It is also dynamic, healthy, and reliably well-watered; low rainfall sometimes turns off the freshwater “tap” (i.e inflow from the Waychinicup River) but ocean waves and tides ensure that this inlet is constantly flushed/refreshed.

Solid granite cloaks a lot of Waychinicup’s upper slopes.

As a result, when it rains, a whole lot of water flows downhill, some of it into little gullies which briefly become rushing rivulets.

The photo was taken at 1.57 pm on 15 March 2021, a little less than one hour before the one in #21 of this series.

#21 offered a telephoto view, focused on Waychinicup Inlet’s eastern shoreline, as viewed from midway along the inlet’s western side.

#22’s is a wide-angle (24mm) view, taken from the inlet’s northwest “corner”; it looks along the inlet’s western side, out to where the Southern Ocean meets the inlet.

The photo (copyright Doug Spencer) was taken from the inlet’s western edge, looking across to (and focused on) its eastern edge.

Granite – and lichens, flourishing thereon – are key elements.

The inlet’s “neck”/ inland-most end soon fans out into its much wider and longer, lake-like expanse.

Pictured is the final stretch of the Waychinicup River’s 17 kilometres.

After this spot, the river tumbles into the Waychinicup Inlet; arguably, the inlet is only truly “estuarine” in the narrow section within circa 150 metres of the river-proper’s end. (you will see that section in #20 of this series)

Like #17 in this series, today’s post is the fruit of a little walk along the Waychinicup River’s final kilometre, as mid-afternoon turned into late afternoon on 22 September 2020.