Bibbulmun track part 14 Woolbales to Walpole – To the Sea! – thru hike end-to-end
Kaya koorda (Hello friends) Day 44 on the Bibbulmun Track. We are leaving Woolbales. We just said goodbye to the kids from Christchurch Grammar with whom we've shared camp for the last three nights. Good kids but it will be more peaceful without them now till we hit the next lot of Christchurch kids in a few days. We are heading today to the beach. Bit of a
chilly morning but the sun has just broken through making everything very pretty and warming us up. Watch me complain about heat later this week, I reckon. Anyway, only about 10 k's before we hit Mandalay Beach. Meanwhile we're on the plains and dearly hoping this morning not to get any puddles It's fantastic to see the diversity that's thrown up by the substandard nature of West Australian soils! Difficulty of existence is what creates such strange adaptations in our plants here that, and isolation very worthy of protection Morning! I don't know if you could hear in that little bit of clip just before there but we can hear the ocean! sort of just over those hills and sand dunes- in the distance - bit hard to see but yeah, we're about 10km walk from the ocean. Probably a little bit less if you... if you went straight through there! Very soon we will have walked from Perth to the ocean! a major milestone coming up today shoes a bit wet this morning but I've got a dry pair of socks so life's good oh yeah Kath doesn't really know at the moment she's been waking up at 4 46 in the morning when the sun rises I haven't told her yet Perth to the Southern Ocean to the sea! a watermelon rock that's brilliant all those lines you see on it would be years and years of water running down it - thousands - hundreds of thousands of years possibly (music plays) I'm climbing on granite. Actually it's good to try to avoid as much as possible stepping on the vegetation. It's a bit difficult there
We'll see, usually, a combination of stone cairns like this one here and poles even. You can see where Howie is over there and sometimes there will be waugyl markers actually attached to the stone itself sound of the ocean growing stronger all the time these pretty cotton puffs! right now we're on a boardwalk over a broad creek system trying not to touch... this one we think it's this one. We're not sure. Because the notes mention something called a blister bush which they, unhappily, do not provide a photo of! They just tell you not to touch it with a very vague description of shiny narrow green leaves which seems to be, well, a feature of most bushes! so there you go desperately trying not to touch anything while also doing the limbo under a fallen fallen tree back there. Not to mention, yeah don't touch the snakes! I haven't seen any yet. Oh! and we said the word so that's probably put us in danger territory now! all right so, what's the day offering up now? A bit of swampy open plains, gray sky over that way, and blue sky out that way. Here we go, on on! So long forests
hello sand! it's the first climb, going up Oh there's his bum! Ha ha! yeah, we've just, we've just come down into a bit of a sandy flat here. Sort of really feels like we're getting close to the coast here. Oh, well we are! yeah! but yeah we left the last little bit of jarrah forest there and have come down. We're definitely in between sand dunes and and things now and there's a whole range of new plants we're seeing and noticing a whole different landscape you can hear the native bees (sound of bees buzzing) our first official glimpse of the ocean we've made it! Well, almost made it. Once we walk over there, we've made it! Here we go...
Woooohooo!! On on!! (Joyful celebration sounds) There she is! yeah it looks like there might be some rain coming in. Had a little short walk along the beach now we're gonna head up through those dunes and along the coast up over there somewhere I'm hoping you can see not bad at all all right we've just done some beach walking and some dune walking and there's a bit of a sweat situation happening, but thankfully on this side there's a breeze and a bit more solid ground. I reckon there's a good amount of sand dune in my shoes though. I'll look forward to getting that out later, oh. Meanwhile, a bit of a bush bash through here down through there
Hoping that it's a bit early for ticks down here! (music plays) and now to catch up with them So that's, that's Broke Inlet there and we've walked from the far side of that, around through here in about three - three or four days absolutely stunning, amazing little section of the country here (music plays) what a spectacular day! Just the change in all the scenery and finally hitting Mandalay Beach, finally hitting the coast. It's just definitely, easily in my top three, easily and now coming down into the first hut here... what's this one called? Long Point. Coming down into Long Point. Great day - absolutely brilliant (music plays) Good morning. Day 45 and we're heading from Long Point camp. We're going to double hut today, we're going through Mount Clare hut and we're going to push on to Walpole we planned that a while ago. They're both fairly short days, uh sorry, fairly short sections it might be a bit tough, but we'll see how we go. Mainly because we haven't got enough food
well, we planned it that way but, so we need to get into Walpole today anyway. Leaving at about six probably get there, we're planning about two, maybe three o'clock, so there's plenty of time. Plenty of time. So, hey - town day today! So I've got the speed on because I'm trying to catch up Bob and Kath. I sent them off because up on the ridge back there, I had the drone up. Nice early morning shot, and I was going to get them going along the ridgeway and I was flying into the sun and then couldn't see them! I mean, I overshot them but I've ended up with a couple of these these really good shots. As I was bringing it back, I lost it in the sun for a while. Couldn't find it... But then I heard it... so I managed to steer it towards me via sound
absolutely great day yesterday one of the top three easily that one, somewhere in the in the karri forest south of Donnelly between Donnelly River and Pemberton - really hard sections but just so, so rewarding. Absolutely stunning anyway, yeah, should be a tough day but I think we're definitely up for it I'll let you know later (music plays) Day 45 continues... Back in forest, baby! we're now in the Nyuts Wilderness. I'm not sure how to pronounce it... n-u-y-t-s and we're particularly pleased with ourselves I think for getting up so early and leaving camp by six today. It made that walk through those gorgeous dunes
really pleasurable. I think when it starts to heat up, it's probably less so. Now, as the day warms up not significantly so, but warms up nonetheless, we get to enjoy the shade of the forest please enjoy this tassle flower Ha ha, Howie loves the swing bridge! Do you want to wait at the other end for me? yeah, it's only going to get wobblier! This is my life now! On on! right, so we've made it through to the... well, this is the walk up to Mt Clare and we definitely nailed it with the timing of the day today - just that sand dune or the dune section that we were in was gorgeous - so quiet and just stunning and we've got here and climbing up and we should run into a few red tingle trees which... there's a few varieties of the tingles
but they date back to Gondwana times, apparently, so they are old... Well they haven't lived that long but their lineage goes back and I don't know if that's one there it's definitely a big tree but we will find out and let you know not sure what we're calling this but it's some sort of 'bomb' it's peanut butter with the leftover of our little trail mix which is chocolate chips and granola and coconut and whatever on the good old Vitawheats yummy so good Mount Clare Hut thanks for letting us have lunch at you but we are going to push on to Walpole a couple of great examples of red tingles there and yeah get into town - looks like we're going to get there even before the IGA closes which is, seems to be a bit of a thing let's have a little chat about sticks - one of the most dangerous things on the Bibbulmun Track. Firstly, they lie there pretending to be snakes but they're not and then secondly they can lie vertically on the track and especially when it's wet you can just slide along it. The third danger with sticks is that they can hook themselves into your gaiters or into even your shoelace... has just happened to me just before. Look, look at this one lying here being -Oy! - Danger! Dangerous sticks and they hook themselves
in the gaiter and then try to trip you up or you stand on one end thus flipping the other end just slightly high enough to trip you over. Sticks - the most dangerous creature on the Bibbulmun! it's rest stop time. Hiking feet - hiking glamour 101! Oh hey, Bob's down. I'm down - down for the count Will not get up again! 6km till town - we can do it! Town day! Town day! Walpole Inlet in the distance Nice little walk into Walpole. Ever changing landscape We've just come through Walpole Golf course this great little boardwalk through here some paperback trees and looks like we've got a wee bridge coming up here and a Bob Might be talking to someone He is too! I reckon this'll be the Walpole river that runs down to... well we've made it to Walpole by two o'clock so we've got an hour to go around the different places and the first sign we see as we walk out of the bush it's the bottle shop and there it is anyway cafe first and then probably the pub after a shower oh hey Walpole Hiker trash entering town! Washing's on, fed and coffee-d at the cafe and Would you believe it - that is our bed tonight! all right quick shower and off to the pub for dinner that's what you do in Walpole Gonna check the sunset it didn't come up as I expected but you can see the burn offs they are doing just north of the city north of the city! north of Walpole had a great rest day here in Walpole. Rob and Margaret, Kath's mum and dad, brought us over
an awesome picnic. We went down the inlet had that. Bit of wine, cheese... oh we hadn't had cheese, proper cheese, in a while. Finished off our washing. They bought our resupply packages and just generally a great little rest day. Ready to head off tomorrow
2021-06-07 20:32
