Bibbulmun Track 5 - Walpole to Albany

When I left Walpole I knew I was in for a treat. Between Walpole and Denmark the trail passes a lot of tingle trees, strange big trees with a buttressed base and often hollow inside so you can see right through the trunk. In fact they only grow here.

As I came towards the tingle forest I arrived at a hilltop lookout over the ocean. A family was standing there, cameras poised, as I emerged from the forest. I hadn’t realised I was a celebrity! Further along I met 2 women coming towards me who were hiking the trail at the same speed as I was; this was unusual as most people aim to finish in 50 to 60 days, not in under 40, and both they and I were pleased to hear our intentions. They told me about a coffee cart by the Treetop Walk, and also not to look forward to the fish and chips at Peaceful Bay as it wasn’t so good. The coffee cart was welcome news to me but I was sorry to hear about the fish and chips as it has legendary status among Bibb hikers and I had been looking forward to it since before Collie.

The karri and tingle continued, truly great specimens, and also the Frankland River. In the early afternoon I got to the coffee cart and had my latte and cookie. 5 minutes later he closed up. I asked if he always closed that early and he said he was closing for good as he had so few customers. I told him I would have been distraught to arrive here and find no coffee cart after having been told about it and looking forward to it all day. I wondered how many hikers would be told about the coffee cart by the women only to arrive and find it gone.

The next day brought more huge trees and then I crossed a dirt road and suddenly I was done with forest. All finished. It was all coastal heath and sparse stunted trees from now on. The trail undulated on sand and I came to the coast, this time for good. The first beach was Conspicuous Beach with high dunes and a view of Rame Head, which I was about to climb.

It was incredibly windy up on top and the shelter was built to avoid the wind so it avoided the view too. The coastal shelters were mostly like this, unfortunately. I crossed several beaches and often walked close to the water. Nice. 

When I got to Peaceful Bay I set up my tent at the caravan park and went to sample the fish and chips. The shop closed at 5pm and it was already 4pm so I had dinner right away. I had kingfish and chips and I thought it was great. So good that I quickly ordered another serving before they closed. I’ve never had 2 dinners before 5pm before. It was unbelievably windy in the night, huge gusts.

I got up at 6am and as daylight came the sky looked like it was on fire. I was worried about the wind but I seemed to be sheltered where I walked. I had a day of fabulous coastal walking. I had to cross the first of the 4 inlets that can be problematic but this one had such a wide sandbar that it was hard to believe it wasn’t always there. I walked 5 kilometres along Quarram Beach, which I loved, then lost the trail and did some bush bashing. At one point I fell and it was difficult to get up again with the pack on my back. Quite funny. I barely noticed the second inlet I had to cross.

I intended to stay at Boat Harbour shelter and I unpacked everything when I got there, but it had no view and the mozzies were awful so I packed up and left. I went on along the coast to Parry Beach. There was supposed to be a Bibb shelter there but all I found was a commercial campsite, although a nice bush setting just behind the beach. The deal was that Bibb hikers could stay there for free, and even better the ranger told me there was a shelter I could use. He was very complimentary of my hiking efforts. It had just started to rain and I was glad of the shelter when the rain became heavy in the night.

From Parry Beach I had the longest stretch of beach walking, 7 kilometres on Mezzalotti Beach. It looked like the start of a beautiful day and I enjoyed walking to the sound of the surf. Oyster catchers stood at the water's edge.

I stopped a while at William Bay shelter to work out how I would get across the inlet at Denmark, which is the largest. The Bibb officially goes straight across the inlet. When the trail was created they must have expected everyone to go across by boat. This is actually ridiculous as the inlet is not always navigable due to low water levels. I knew there was a backpackers in Denmark whose owner would drive you around the inlet (26 km) if you stay there and I phoned, standing on the picnic table to get a signal. The guy was in Perth and couldn’t help me. This turned out to be very lucky for me. I next phoned a B & B to ask if they could take me and the woman said Oh you can walk across. What many hikers do is take the WIlderness Trail towards Denmark and turn off at the sandbar to walk across and rejoin the Bibbulmun. I couldn’t do this because I didn’t have enough food to last me if I didn’t go into Denmark but I was so grateful for the info about the sandbar. I wanted to hike the whole of the Bibb. It was a coming together of 2 strands of luck.

And I finally saw snakes, one and then another, big black ones that had noticed me before I noticed them. And I saw some whales.

The rest of the day involved climbing over Mt Hallowell. Remember how the day looked like it would be perfect? By lunchtime there were dark clouds and as I started my ascent of Mt Hallowell it started to pour. Only my second time of hiking in rain on the Bibb. I put on my rain pants and stowed my gear. The rain was heavy and at one stage I tried to shelter under a boulder but the boulder itself was dripping so much I was getting wetter faster. The top of the mountain is all about the view but I saw nothing. It seemed a long climb and an even longer descent and I had to keep checking my GPS to see I wasn’t walking around in circles. All I could see were boulders and undergrowth. I couldn’t look up towards the rain, so of course I eventually banged my head on a branch.

When I got back down I had a long and boring walk into Denmark along the inlet. I finally got to the bridge across the river on the edge of Denmark and saw a caravan park which advertised that it took hikers across the inlet. At this stage I still needed confirmation that there really is a sandbar. So I went into the office and asked about boats. They said I could walk and that no boats could get across. I would have camped there but the lure of a motel room was too great.

I continued the last kilometre into Denmark and got a motel room at the pub. My clothes were all wet so I had no choice but to put them back on, wet, after my shower. I had a quick cafe visit - 2 cakes and a latte - and went to buy food. I had a schnitzel at the pub for dinner; the pub was empty and all of Denmark seemed unusually dead for a Friday.

I had to retrace 9 kilometres of yesterday’s walk to get to the sandbar, all the time apprehensive about whether I could really walk across. I had received so much disinformation over the weeks. What was great was that I could enjoy the scenery I had missed yesterday, and the inlet path was very pretty. Rain had been forecast but I was walking in sunshine. As I got close to the sandbar I could see a couple of people walking on it. My spirits soared.

I walked across the sandbar and saw that right from the other side there were Bibb signs. There was a feint trail across the grass and some beach walking. The shoreline was full of pelicans, spoonbills and black swans. By the time I got to the pontoon where the boat notionally docks I had done an extra 16 kilometres. There was a big picnic area so I stopped for coffee.

It felt like another world over there in the Nullaki Wilderness, very remote. I thought of the contrast between this exceedingly quiet Saturday and my Saturday 4 weeks ago when I had stopped at Monadnocks shelter and it was so busy I couldn’t even get a seat. I had not seen a hiker for many days.

I was quite tired when I got to the shelter. It started raining and was again very windy. I slept in the shelter and that was a good decision because there was a thunderstorm in the night. 

The rest of the hike I had off and on rain, but it was never heavy for long. I saw several rainbows. This was coastal walking at its finest with beautiful white sand beaches, dunes, cliffs and colourful heathland. Mostly I was on hilltops. There would be sudden coastal views, a dramatic grey sky and a very rough ocean. But it was not warm. I realised I had been wearing my beanie for about 48 hours straight. Yes, I slept in it.

I was planning to split the final 36 kilometres into 2 days so that I could get into Albany early in the day and have a whole day to revel in my achievement. But the weather wasn’t going to improve and there was no shelter, only a campsite at the place where I would spend my final night; maybe not advisable to have to camp if there could be another storm. Late on Sunday afternoon I decided that I would finish the next day. Having decided that I was so excited I had difficulty sleeping.

I got up well before daylight so I could set out at first light. In the end I left Torbay shelter at 6.45am while it was still dark. I had to cross the Torbay inlet and ironically I got wet feet crossing a channel that wasn’t the inlet while the inlet could be crossed on another wide sandbar. Just before the next shelter I met a Bibb hiker (my first hiker in 6 days) who was on his second day of the trail. Not only had he met Chippy but his wife had given her a ride back to Perth. Small world. I stopped at Muttonbird shelter for coffee and 2 sandwiches; I was carrying far more food than I now needed. I powered on towards Sandpatch past the wind turbines and came to an area that had been badly burned fairly recently. This meant that the final kilometres of the trail were not so special.

At 1pm I was high up and could see Albany in the distance. Exciting! I reckoned I had 2 hours to go. I still managed to take a wrong turn. That was a slow 2 hours as I wound around the bay, climbed another hill behind Albany and came into town. In the town the trail markers were poor and frustrating as I wanted to be done. Finally I reach the southern terminus, by the railway station, at 3.08pm. It was about the most inauspicious spot anyone could have selected. Even after all that effort I still had to walk a kilometre to the visitor centre to ring the Bibbulmun bell and sign the register.

And then it was all over. 34 days and 997 kilometres according to my watch. Of course I walked quite a bit more messing around in the towns and forgetting to turn on my watch and setting out before having an arrangement with the satellites. It is often a strange feeling, or rather an absence of feelings, to finish something big, and this was no exception.

Daily distances hiked: 28.5km, 28.8km, 31.4km, 31.7km, 28.2km, 33.1km, 37.1km

Bibbulmun Track 4 - Pemberton to Walpole

The days were not as warm now, even though I had plenty of sunshine. The air was cooler and I rarely hiked in short sleeves. 

This was my well established morning routine: look at my phone and see that it was after 6am; deflate my air mat while lying on it (that way I definitely would not want to go back to sleep); put on my beanie; put on my fleece top which had been my pillow; put on socks and long pants; put everything that was in my tent outside; exit the tent to put on shoes; take everything over to the shelter for packing up. By now it would be light so I could check I had left nothing behind. Including breakfast and getting water, packing etc, it still took me over an hour from waking up to hitting the trail.

First thing out of Pemberton I came to the Gloucester tree which can be climbed on metal staples banged into the trunk. So naturally I had to climb it. It was just on daybreak and nobody around. This is about as scary as I like to do, but the view from the top with the early sunlight on a clear day was wonderful.

I had a long day's hiking ahead of me but I was lucky that the map and website exaggerated the distance considerably. At last I was well and truly into the karri forest. No more jarrah for me. I preferred the karri, very tall and straight and losing their bark. Although this meant there was bark ready to trip on everywhere. The main sight that day was a long trestle bridge which had just been restored. It crossed a dry river so it was redundant right now but very attractive.

I camped at a shelter by a lake, a novelty for me. The following day I came to Northcliffe, another restock and snack at a cafe. I had my carrot cake and latte for morning tea then bought a large chips to eat as I hiked. At the general store there was a packet of iced buns on the counter which I really liked the look of but I decided they were too heavy to carry.

At that night's shelter, Gardner, I had 2 guys for company who were on a gastronomic hike. One of them had prepared a 3-course meal with accompanying beer, wine and liqueur, and it was probably irritating for them to have me sitting there with my noodles. Some sort of animal gave me a big scare in the night sniffing around my tent.

Then I hiked a very long way via another shelter by a lake to Dog Pool shelter which is one that hikers rave about. The terrain was becoming more sandy and there were pockets of warm and cold air. Unusual. It was forecast to rain, 95% chance said my friend at Gardner, but I just had humidity. I passed 2 end to end hikers; it was becoming much more unusual to see other hikers these days and those that weren’t day trippers.

At 4.20pm I heard my first thunder clap. I put on my rain jacket and stowed my things in dry bags. More thunder. At 4.50pm I reached Dog Pool, a new rammed earth shelter. At 4.57pm the rain started and by 5pm it was heavy. By the time it got dark at 5.45pm the rain was torrential with thunder and lightning. It was only the next day that I could see why people like this shelter: it’s by a couple of pretty swimming holes.

Now I was embarking on the Pingerup Plains. Seasonally inundated trail says the map, and the shelter log books had many accounts of hikers wading through thigh high water. But all was dry for me. Just a tiny bit of mud in one or two places. It was all very flat and fast walking. Reminded me of Tasmania with a moorland look, but the grass trees and frequent forested hills were out of character. A pair of kangaroos sat by the trail long enough to be photographed, but I could never be organised enough to photograph an emu. This was the first of several perfect blue sky days. I thought I finally saw a snake but I think it was a legless lizard (yes, that’s a thing) and then I saw another that was clearly a legless lizard. According to the log books everyone else was seeing lots of snakes.

I called it a day at Mt Chance, which gave me time to climb this granite peak for a view over the plains. I could just about see the Walpole inlet - ocean! Almost. A Swiss couple turned up very late and this was a stroke of luck for me because they had walked from a shelter that I did not know about and caused me to change my plans for the better.

The next day was a long one but special. I made it to the coast. As I got closer I kept saying to myself I'll be at the coast by 3pm but I had a big valley to cross first. The vegetation was coastal, low heath and sandy underfoot. When I finally reached Mandalay Beach I was not disappointed. A long sweep of white sand and islands off shore. There was even someone there to take a photo of me and whom I could tell where I had come from.

Between the beach and the next hut the going was tough. The path was sandy and very undulating, quite steep in places and the deep sand made it hard to move uphill at a decent pace. I could see the ocean all the way. The hut was half a kilometre off the trail and that distance makes a difference when you've walked 40 already. The shelter was busy with a hiking group and several solo hikers, but a good atmosphere. I camped comfortably on sand.

The dune vegetation here was nice, especially the grass trees with tall spikes in abundance. I had a nice climb up Mt Clare before reaching Walpole. Of course I went back into forest. This was only a taste of coastline. Walpole was not exciting. I had a lot to eat at the bakery, bought cookies to eat while hiking out of town, and bought food. I needed the map of this section of the Bibb but the visitor centre didn't have it; they told me the map was very popular, which suggests to me they should keep it in stock. 

I camped a bit outside Walpole at a caravan park by a beach on the inlet. I had for some reason not bought food for that night so I got a can of beans and a can of spaghetti at the caravan park shop. I ate them cold. Even worse, I couldn’t find my torch so I ate in darkness. 

Daily distances hiked: 38km, 29.3km, 41.3km, 19.5km, 40.1km, 26km

Bibbulmun Track 3 - Collie to Pemberton

I had anticipated in my planning that the hike would take 42 days and that I would want to take one or 2 rest days. As it turned out I was on target to finish in a shorter time and I never felt like a day off. Even on shorter days I was at a loss how to fill in the afternoon because I didn’t want to use up my phone battery by reading for too long or listening for too long and side hikes had no appeal at all. In the early days it was possible to 'double hut' relatively easily but in the middle stages of the track the shelters were further apart and I had to be careful planning double huts or I would be walking huge distances. But gradually I ramped up my daily totals.

Coming out of Collie I crossed many more dry creeks and came to Glen Mervyn Dam which for me was the worst part of the trail. The forest had been extensively burnt and car campers had left a lot of trash near and on the trail. I came out of the forest for a while to see pastoral landscapes and pass the Mumbalup Tavern (closed on Tuesdays, and actually looked like it wasn’t often open) and walked up a long steep hill which I enjoyed. Then I went happily back into the forest. I should have been over jarrah by now but I wasn’t. This was my longest day yet, 39 kilometres.

The next day I was tired and stopped early at a shelter where the toilet was positioned to give a great view if you kept the door open. Which I could do as there was no one around. There were heaps of 28's. Quite late another hiked showed up, Chippy, who was a very experienced thru hiker and we talked a lot. She was hiking faster than me and long days.

I was excited to come to Balingup, another town, with a Nimbin feel. I restocked food then ate a lunchtime panini at a cafe. I should have eaten more but the sight of lots of daytrippers scoffing cakes took away my appetite. After Balingup I did not think I could make it to the next shelter that night and was intending to camp out but the track came out of the forest to cross private farmland and there was nowhere I would have felt safe camping. I saw lots of cows, many of them right on the trail, Alpine style.

It got dark and I was still hiking. Of course my torch was right at the bottom of my pack so I had to stop and unpack everything. The last bit before the shelter was over a grassy hill high on the rim of the Blackwood River valley. Before it got dark there was a band of red around the horizon. I reached Blackwood shelter at 6pm. Pitch black, and I only noticed the shelter because I could discern the outline of the toilet. I could have walked right past it. That would have been a shame because this shelter has hands down the best outlook of any of the trail's shelters, and nice grassy camping spots to boot.

There were 2 young Germans already in their sleeping bags in the shelter so I gave them a surprise. 20 minutes later Chippy arrived, her accommodation at Balingup had fallen through.

In the morning the whole valley was in fog. The view was magic. But soon we had to descend and the descent was so steep and muddy that I fell once. This was a short day as I was very tired. The Germans, Chippy and I all stayed at the next shelter and we made a fire in the fireplace. The water in the tank was a really dark brown but tasted fine. I wasn’t always treating my drinking water but I thought I should this time.

At Donnelly River Village cafe I had lunch with Chippy and made sure to eat enough, a slice of carrot cake followed by a Turkish BLT roll. We continued on and walked 16 kilometres without stopping. There was a lot of burnt forest. At the shelter that night were 2 older women who were proud of their ability to dehydrate their own food. They had some elaborate meals but not what I want after hiking all day. They commented a bit disparagingly on my mashed potato.

I walked with Chippy until the half way marker for the trail. It’s sad that the marker post has lost its directional arms and is just a tall post with a waugal on top. We said our goodbyes and I had my mid morning break.

I hiked to the next shelter where I was meaning to stay but it was so early that I decided to continue on and camp out because again the next shelter was too far away for that night. This part of the trail is called the DRV Rollercoaster and certainly featured long, steep hills. I liked it but as evening approached I could see no good place to camp. I wasted valuable time going off trail to find a secluded spot but to no avail.

So I went on hiking well after dark, jogging some of the downhills, and eventually gave Chippy a huge shock by arriving at the shelter at 6.30pm. I was so exhausted I slept in the shelter rather than make the effort to put up my tent. Today I had hiked more than a marathon.

Next day I took it easy and reached Beedelup Falls by midday. I was alone at the shelter but slept in my tent as I could put it up right by the creek and listen to the flowing water as I lay in bed. This was one of the nicest campsites.

Next day I got to Pemberton. I stopped at the first cafe I saw. Actually the cafe had closed down but the shop next door did coffee so I had a nice chat with the owner, coffee and several cookies. I checked into a motel on the other side of town so I would have less walking tomorrow but this meant I did a lot of distance going back and forth between town and the motel. I had a pie and vanilla slice at the bakery for lunch and fish and chips at the pub for dinner. In the night a bird made a random screeching noise which kept me awake; I realised that this same screeching in the bush wouldn’t have bothered me at all.

Daily distances hiked: 38.8km, 22.2km, 40.3km, 18km, 36.8km, 42.5km, 20km, 24.4km

Bibbulmun Track 2 - Dwellingup to Collie

My favourite wildlife on the hike was the emu. I had surprised a pair of them in the burnt area before Dwellingup when I stood up after a muesli bar break. I saw more than a few in my 5 weeks, but they were always in a rush and usually ran across the trail or down the trail ahead of me seeming startled. I saw kangaroos every so often but rarely near the trail; they were usually jumping around in the undergrowth.

I already felt the hardest part of the hike was over because the track towns are closer together than Perth to Dwellingup for the rest of the way. Five days only to Collie. I was also finding my pack lighter to carry and I no longer felt a daily onset of discomfort after I’d been hiking 14 kilometres or so. 

It was raining as I left Dwellingup so I put on my waterproof pants. First time I’ve used them for their real purpose, not just worn them as trackpants. Then I soon took them off again as I was uncomfortably warm. Big mistake. It soon started to rain more heavily and my shorts quickly became soaked. I couldn’t put my pants back on because they would have been wet on the inside and not pleasant at all. I reminded myself how often I have run in the rain in shorts and been perfectly ok; I temporarily forgot that I wouldn’t be able to have a hot shower this evening.

Very soon I was really cold and hiking through wet plantation forest on a trail that seemed unnecessarily convoluted. Eventually I reach Swampy Oak shelter, where I saw an emu and this perked me up a lot, and I was able to remove my shorts and replace them with my pants. I drank some soup (I know, I don’t like soup, but I had bought it so I decided to have some) and listened to the rain on the shelter roof. After a long time I peered outside, then ventured outside, and I realised the rain had stopped but the trees were dripping noisily onto the shelter roof.

So I headed out again. I had a long 18 km afternoon ahead. Soon I met 3 hikers in quick succession, and one of them told me the rain was not forecast to return anytime soon. The trees were still dripping a lot so I still got wet but it was much nicer walking than before my break.

The hikers I met had told me there were 9 hikers at Murray shelter last night but I was there alone. The shelter was by the river. It was a real river with water unlike the many dry river beds I had seen. I put up my tent rather than use the shelter, partly because I liked looking at the stars as I lay in bed listening to podcasts, and I ate a freeze dried meal (as a novelty, and I won’t need to do this again in the future except that I bought 2 of them in Dwellingup). The overgrown trail vegetation around this part was thigh high and very wet; people called it car wash trail.

It was very cold in the morning and foggy and I worried a bit that I didn’t have enough clothes with me, especially if I was going to have more rain. I felt a touch despondent. I also found that I had worn right through the soles of my socks and I had to put on my spare pair. That didn’t matter but I resented having to carry a pair of useless socks.

I had looked forward to walking by the river but this was one of those trails that appeared on the map to be by the river but in reality the river was out of sight mostly. It was especially out of sight when I somewhere took a wrong turn, or missed a turn and went way off the Bibb. I sat down and examined map, GPS on my phone and the map on my watch for about 20 minutes then decided which way to go to regain the trail. Within 2 minutes of starting out I saw a Bibb marker! It wasn’t a proper marker but one of the sort they use for a temporary detour and they must have neglected to remove it as there was no detour in place here. But the markers were all there for a few kilometres until I rejoined the main trail. I had done an additional 3 kilometres and this was the last time I went seriously wrong on the entire hike.

After 48 hours of not seeing anyone at all I chanced upon a family hiking, and they stayed at Possum Springs shelter while I camped close by. The parents carried an unbelievable amount of gear but still got very cold at night. They assured me this cold weather was unusual and I would not have such conditions again. 

I was hiking day after day in jarrah forest. Normally I prefer open expanses and views but the forest was all lovely. For lunch one day I made a detour off the trail to a shelter that was in an even better stand of jarrah, no signs of past burning and perfectly shaped trees. Not surprisingly there was no fireplace.

That afternoon I sensed a strong smell of smoke as I hiked. My experience from a few days ago was still in my mind and when I heard a helicopter I was even more alarmed. I hiked fast and was pleased to see a couple at the next shelter. They hadn’t smelled any smoke. The man gave me some tips about places to eat in the coming weeks, not all reliable I’m afraid. He also said that after the rain that night there was no rain forecast for the next 10 days and this was correct. The night rain was quite light. I was pleased they were there to guide me (by yelling directions) when at bedtime I couldn’t find where I had erected my tent; it was so black by 5.45pm and there were lots of little trails not leading to my tent. BTW bedtime was generally 6pm.

I walked quickly into Collie. A town day always raised my heart rate as I walked. Collie is an odd place - there is a fenced off railway line running the entire length of the town centre but not many trains. I checked into a motel and had my first shower for 13 days, and rinsed my clothes. Then I went to Maccas. Honestly, I did not see another cafe. I bought 2 new pairs of socks and food for the next stretch. I ate at one of Collie's many pubs: schnitzel with pepper sauce, chips and salad.

Daily distances hiked: 32km, 17.8km, 25.4km, 33km, 21.2km

Bibbulmun Track 1 - Kalamunda to Dwellingup

Around Christmas 2002 we had a family holiday in Western Australia and I was just getting into trail running so I did a few runs on the Bibbulmun Track. I knew it was a very long trail and I liked what I ran but in the years since then I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. I was having a long break from hiking so this kind of venture was off my radar. I certainly would never have imagined in a million years that I would one day be returning there to hike the entire length of the trail. But - spoiler alert - I hiked the approximately 1000 kilometres of the trail, north to south, over 34 days this past May and June. I took the bus from central Perth to the Perth Hills suburb of Kalamunda, walked and walked and walked, ate more mashed potato and muesli bars than sounds advisable, saw a lot of trees, and ended up in Albany on the south coast of WA. I loved it all.

On Day 1, May 8, after eating a roll with Nutella in my Perth hotel room and drinking a cup of instant coffee, I said goodbye to normal life  and caught the bus to Kalamunda. The driver dropped me off at the Bibbulmun trailhead and asked how far I was hiking. I said Albany hardly believing it myself. I said it again to a couple I met exercising their dog on the trail, and then after only 4 kilometres I met a woman hiking towards me who had actually come from Albany. I pointed out, unnecessarily, that she was almost finished and she said she could hardly believe it. I told myself that would me in - I thought at the time - 6 weeks.  Better not focus on that too much now. 

I was to notice in the shelter log books that I signed along the route that the majority of Bibb walkers do the hike in the opposite direction to the direction I had chosen, and this meant that I met hikers coming towards me or at the shelters at night whom I could ask questions about the upcoming track - very handy. More importantly it meant that I would meet human beings in the daytime from time to time to chat with.

My total gear comprised Nemo tent, Feathered Friends sleeping bag, NeoAir mat, trail shoes, 4 tops (running short sleeves, lightweight long sleeves, fleece, rain jacket) plus crop top and 3 bottoms (running shorts, 3/4 leggings, rain pants), 2 pairs socks, gloves, beanie, buff, cooking gear (Evernew pot, metho burner, metho, matches, spork, knife), small washing kit with minuscule towel (including toothbrush cut down to minimum length), small first aid kit, sunblock and lip balm, 2 phones, charger and leads to charge phone and watch, power core, headphones, GPS watch, PLB, small purse, glasses, cap (of course since my trail name was Pink Cap) and sunnies, bottle (just an old one from a purchased drink), torch, pen, toilet paper, Lifestraw, water purifying tablets, bits and pieces like safety pins, elastic bands, 3 dry bags. Probably forgotten to mention something. Well, maybe not as I was travelling as light as possible

I had food for 8 days in my pack (to get me to Dwellingup) which included many packets of instant mashed potato and I felt reasonably confident, having done the GSWW recently. Confident that I could last out in terms of energy and also that I could sustain a liking for mashed potato for that long! I had adjusted my pack frame after that hike and I wasn’t going to have the back discomfort I had endured in the early days. I had eliminated unnecessary weight like my plastic cup and spare clothes. In Perth I had bought the 4 trail maps for the first half of the route.

The early hiking was on a roughish track, short ups and downs, and I met a weirdo near Mundaring Weir who stopped me to give me some unsolicited advice about how to hike. There was a strong smell of barbecuing sausages around the weir, which turned out to be caused by a small festival for a mountain bike race that finished on the hill above the weir. 

The better things about the weir were seeing a snake warming up on a concrete section of the trail and seeing many green 28 parrots (yes, that’s what they are called). I was expecting a lot of snakes on the trail. I was not to see another for about a month.

I stopped at the first campsite/sleeping shelter I came to in order to sign the log book; I was intending to sign every log book on the trail. Then I continued to Ball Creek campsite and stopped for the night, alongside a teenage school group. The stars were magnificent, as they were going to be for my entire hike, and the moon was close to full. This was a great introduction to my 5 weeks of camping. 

The next day I lost the trail briefly only minutes after starting out. As I was looking around for the trail I amazingly noticed a hiker pop out of the bush just where I had to go and turn down in the direction I had just come. It was most odd that he should have been there at that time of day hiking in the opposite direction to me, but lucky for me. I stuck to the trail after that and after passing a couple of huts ended up at Beraking campsite, nicely perched on the side of the escarpment.

There was a couple from Perth there who were hiking part of the trail and doing only a few kilometres each day. The man seemed blown away by the 26 kilometres I had hiked that day and he kept saying how amazing my distance was; he said it so often that I began to wonder if he felt bothered by a woman who could walk that far. Then I bothered him again by sleeping in my tent when he repeatedly said I should share the sleeping shelter with them; in the morning they complained how cold they had been all night while I was able to report truthfully that I hadn’t been cold at all.

But then I blotted my copybook by walking back out onto the trail and heading back the way I had come! After half a kilometre I noticed a marking by the side of the trail that I remembered from the previous afternoon. Later on I missed a turning and ended up half way up Mt Dale before realising I had gone wrong. After that I resolved to pay more attention.

That morning a funny thing happened when I crossed paths with a pair of hikers walking the track in the reverse direction; the guy was just having a pee. What were the chances? Neither of us would probably see anyone else the whole day. 

That night there was someone else at the sleeping shelter when I arrived. He was a bit odd, very ingratiating and with an impossibly heavy pack, too many pots and pans and 18 freeze dried meals (which he showed me). I slept in my tent well away from the shelter. In the night the guy walked around a bit (he might have gone to the toilet) and this was the only night of my trip that I felt uneasy/scared.

The next day brought real hills, something I had not expected. First I stopped at Monadnocks campsite and it was so crowded I couldn’t even sit down. Daytrippers. It was Saturday. Then I had some climbs over granite outcrops and went up a succession of granite peaks, including Mt Cooke (582m) which is the highest point on the Bibb. From the tops there were trees as far as the eye could see, an amazing sight.

I was already noticing a distinct shortage of wildlife in the forest and also not hearing many birds. Occasionally I would see/hear a black cockatoo or see tiny finches. Plenty of trees, though. And a phenomenal number of grass trees. I was never out of sight of grass trees for many weeks, whatever else the vegetation.

I shared a campsite with a guy walking to raise funds for Alzheimer's. He did not approve of my mashed potato diet. Even when I added chunks of salami. I told him I usually eat very healthily but I was out hiking and that made a difference. I had already been lectured by another hiker on the need to eat fresh vegetables. I was eating what my body needed, thanks all the same.

On my fifth night I was finally alone for the night. This was the day I hiked up to Mt Wells where there is an old fire lookout tower and the watchman's quarters had been repurposed into a hiker shelter. In the late afternoon I sat half way up the tower drinking my coffee while gazing out over the forest and then I slept as usual in my sleeping bag but in a room with a door.

The following day I had my first real adventure on the trail. There was a prescribed burn in progress and consequently 2 detours that lengthened the day's hiking, the first by only a kilometre but the second by 7 kilometres. Since that night's shelter was well inside the burn zone the Bibb people had set up a temporary campsite near the end of the long detour. Notably for what transpired, this campsite was at one edge of the burn zone.

As I walked the longer detour alongside the outer boundary of the burn zone I could see numerous small fires still burning. There were glowing embers all over the place. Mr Alzheimer, who was walking the opposite direction to me, had told me that the firies had been doing the burning the day he walked there, so the main action should have been over by the time I got there. I got to the temporary campsite quite early in the day and put up my tent, then sat in the sunshine reading for hours. Nobody else turned up. I could see burning embers nearby but I assumed I was safe. At the same time I was a bit worried, and I wished there was someone around to tell me it was safe there. Later on I could see huge plumes of smoke. Around 5pm I saw a ute drive fast along the road close to my campsite and I assumed it would come back the same way so I could run over and ask if I was safe camping there, but it didn’t return. 

I cooked dinner, ate it and was about to get into my tent when I looked towards the forested hillside and saw so many little fires that I decided I could not possibly stay the night there; I would be too scared to sleep. So at 5.50pm I pulled down the tent, packed my bag and started walking towards the point where the detour joined the main trail. Close to here there was a considerably larger fire burning. I was in pitch darkness by 6pm but it was fun walking with my torch and the reflective track markers (once I got onto the main trail) were easy to see. I heard a few kangaroos thumping around. I walked about 6 kilometres, well away from the burn zone, and then set up my tent close to a dirt road where I would not be burnt alive in my sleep. I was in bed by 8pm and I ate a Kit Kat in bed to celebrate my good sense in moving camp.

This left me with only a short walk into Dwellingup, my first track town, on Day 8 and I was there by 10am, even after a stop at the abandoned Emitlyn railway siding for my breakfast coffee, where I saw something to warm a hiker's heart: a rubbish bin. 

I had lunch at a cafe in Dwellingup, my first opportunity to disgrace myself by having a double meal consisting of a large latte with a panini and then a large latte with a slice of carrot cake. I had dinner at the pub, schnitzel with mushroom sauce, chips and salad. Between these meals I had a nap.

I had a very basic room at the caravan park and in the night my neighbour snored loudly. I wondered what to do for a while and then lifted the thin mattress off my bed and took it, along with the pillow and my sleeping bag, to the camp laundry, where I was able to lock the door from the inside and I had a good sleep. It was just starting to rain during this 2am move, my first rain of the trip.

Daily distances hiked:  21.5km, 26.8km, 32.9km, 28km, 29.1km, 32.2km, 29.5km, 11.5km