Tim’s Thickett to Preston Beach May 2021

Participants:

Sean, Trip Leader – Triton

Shane – Triton

Dave – Prado

Gary and Azriel – Landcruiser

Pedro, Rico and Danni – Triton

Craig and Kate, visitors – Pajero

Tony and Anna, visitors – Ranger

Part 1 – Sean

Although well out of the path of Cyclone Seroja, its impact along the coast did wash away a bit of sand here and there, and the southern end of the Tim’s Thicket beach (just north of Whitehills Beach Rd) became too narrow for vehicles to travel on for about two hundred metres.

A reccy on Friday revealed a track weaving through the dune behind the beach providing a way to pass the washed out section.

Moving to Halls Head late last year has been great for our own personal access to these great southern beaches, and has the bonus of being only minutes away from the Miami Bakehouse at Falcon. As you will read below shortly, two of our group, Dave and Shane, made use of the superb weather forecast to get down to the beach quite early to wet a line. Their reason to meet at the Bakehouse at the early hour of oh six thirty, was an excellent reason for Deb and I (as early risers too), to wander down and grab a coffee with them before they went fishing. As Dave will explain, there were a couple of other reasons for catching up with them too.

Part 2 – Dave

Whilst looking at the All Tracks trip calendar, I could see a trip planned by Sean.  Tim’s Thicket to Preston Beach.

Seabreeze website showed it to be a great day out.  Low winds, low swell, just a perfect day to be had by the water’s edge.

So, two days before the trip started, I received a phone call from Shane.  “Dave, I want to go early morning and do some fishing”.  Didn’t take much effort to convince me.  Actually was no effort at all.  We planned to meat at the meet pie shop  at 6.30.  Grab a coffee and shoot off.

Shane and I happened to meet up with each other on the freeway, we chatted away via UHF and as we approached Mandurah, we were greeted with a good morning from Sean and Deb.  “Are you still stopping at the bakery for 6.30?” 

Meeting up at the Miami bakery and being greeted by Luke and Lulu was a great start to the day.

Both Paw-yal dogs being chauffeured by their servants – Sean and Deb. The bunch of us all ordered our coffees, had a bit of a chat and, as Sean says “you get to sign the trip sheet before bathing in Cologne de Fish!”.

Once logged in, we headed off on our fishing expedition.

Arriving at our fishing spot, we set up and fished away.  Fishing for the yummy Sand Whiting was slow with not much happening. 

Shane shifted up a gear and started fishing the big guns. Out in the deeper blue was a big school of big bull Herrings.  This provided us with a great source of entertainment and a great feed of fresh fish to take home.

 I changed out my small gear to the big beach rod, and all was good.  We both were catching plenty.

Keeping our eyes on the time and ears to the UHF, we had a rough idea on the time when Sean and the crew would be approaching us.  Perfect time really.  We were approaching our fish quota for the day and we could hear the chatter from the Club slowly making their way south to us.

I started filleting our fish, Shane caught a few more fish and we were done.  We radioed to the rest of the group, asked if anyone wanted to fish before we packed away. 

Not long after everyone was finally together 

Part 3 – Sean
After an early morning cuppa with Dave and Shane Deb and I headed home. Another reason for the early morning cuppa was simply for Deb to catch up with these two as she would not be joining the trip later in the day.
Although only a few minutes from the Bakehouse at Falcon, I managed to be the last person to arrive when I got there bang on 9:30. After everyone was signed in and drivers briefed, we headed for Tim’s Thicket. At the end of the bitumen we aired-down. It doesn’t take long to get to the beach, and the northernmost section of the Tim’s Thicket beach accessible by vehicle is possibly the best location on this section of coast. With a massively wide section of sand, there is a close inshore reef that protects a small bay providing a great bit of flat water to either swim or fish in. Our mission was neither, however this section did provide a great place to line all the vehicles up and grab a few pictures.

After the photo shoot, we headed south down the beach, and thanks to the reccy the day before, knew all the locations to get in and out of the dunes. Some of the weaving through the dunes was simply to add a bit of diversity to the route, however the last jaunt into the dunes was to get around the washed out section just before getting to Whitehills Rd.

As we were weaving around in the dunes and along the beach, Dave picked up our radio chatter quite clearly and gave us an indication of how far down the beach they were. With their quota of fish caught, they still kept a couple of rods rigged up so a few of us could wet a line too when we finally made it to them. Once south of Whitehills Rd, the remainder of the trip would be on the beach. Dave and Shane were found about five kilometres further down the beach, their location on quite a wide section of beach that became a break point for a while.

During this break, Gary and Rico both got into a bit of fishing. I don’t recall if Gary caught anything, however Rico certainly had a good feel for the line and managed to catch a few fish. Despite having a good feel for the catching part, it was quite funny that Rico wasn’t so fond of the unhooking part, cheerfully leaving this to Shane! Young Azriel had a great time too, although no-one was brave enough to follow Az’ into the water for a swim.

After a bite to eat, the odd cup of coffee or tea, and some conversation, we were packed and heading south again down the beach. The destination, Preston Beach is about 22km from Whitehills Rd, so we had about a 17km run from Shane and Dave’s fishing spot. Overall this turned out to be a fairly easy trip down the beach, and a few softer sections were traversed with ease by everyone. Craig managed to ride shotgun for this part of the days driving, and although a little hesitant at first, Kate did a great job for her stint behind the wheel, including some nice tiller work through a couple of soft sections with a slope that had a few of us going sideways here and there.

Without any holdups, it took less than an hour to get to Preston Beach. There is an easy to find, flat and wide exit off the beach here to a car park where we all aired up before heading home.

Overall an enjoyable day, with thanks to everyone that came along.

Story by Sean F.

Click here to check out the Youtube vid of this great trip