Coastal Plain Trail - FKT effort by Justin Mulhair, 15 Feb 2026
I started the day early by getting an uber to Yanchep National Park, arriving at approximately 5:35am. Fortunately, there are lots of public toilets in the national park so I went for a quick stop at the toilet before my stretch routine.
I had a banana and 300mls of staminade before starting. In my pack, I had 9 gels (a mix of Bix, SIS Koda and Pure running), a small bag of lollies, emergency food (hot cross bun and biscoff biscuits) and 2.7litres of fluids being, 2 500ml flasks of tailwind, 1 500ml flask of Precision Fuel carb mix and 1.2litres of water in a bladder. I also had a snake bandage, space blanket and a few first aid items.
The first 10km were very familiar as I have run there many times for training and for events. It was pleasant running.
After 10km, the trail crosses Indian Ocean Drive. 11km to 16km is very overgrown. It was difficult to distinguish between what was the trail and what was just scrub. It was predominantly single track and there was a lot of overgrown scrapey scrubs!!! My shins and thighs now have many small cuts :(. (Tip for the next person - consider tall socks!).
16km to 22km was runnable. From 23km, you begin to run on much softer sand. Initially this is just single track but it joins with VERY SOFT SAND 4x4 tracks from time to time. That said, I kept reasonable momentum up to roughly 32km. From there, it's very soft sand for the next 6/7km so I just focused on trying to pick a good line to run on.
There's a short reprieve from soft sand (about 2km) but then it's more soft sand (yay for me :|). up to 43km/44km. The trail is well marked (lots of blue triangles on trees) but it is horrendously overgrown for the final 6km. The surface underfoot is runnable but it's tricky to stay on the trail as everything just looks like overgrown scrub. I ran out of fluids around 48km but I knew I was close to the end so it wasn't a big deal.
I was relatively happy with the time but I definitely slowed down a lot in the final 15km. This was primarily because of the tough terrain but also, there was some stopping and slowing down trying to navigate. Of course, some fatigue crept in too and the sun climbed higher as the day moved on!
There's definitely time left to give on the course. The lack of water on the trail is a big limiting factor. I reckon an effort in spring or autumn would be advisable to manage the heat but if the trail isn't maintained, the overgrown scrub will still be a big factor too!