Bibbulmun Track: Part 3 White Horse Hills to Dwellingup – Toilet tips & town - end to end thruhike
Kaya koorda (hello friend). Good morning on the morning of day 10 and we are leaving at about 10 past seven which seems to be our usual time for leaving. It's going to be a hot day but right now there's a nice chill in the air. Our merry band of hikers has expanded considerably - team travellus interruptus, also known as Bob's Brains Trust, now consists of ourselves, Bob of course, Jenny's still with us, Simone unfortunately is off back to the real world but Fiona is now walking with Jenny. Gary from Margaret River has joined us and Dori of Dori's Hikes is now on board too. How's my maths? That's 7 of us making our way tonight to Mount Wells
Thankfully, plenty of us sleep in tents; otherwise Mount Wells might be a crowded little hut tonight! What else is there to say? That was a nice camp in amongst the trees and we're heading up again so i'm going to turn you off so i can do some upward walking at speed. Until later! Emu's been along, and given us a poo emoji! It's an excellent poo, isn't it ?! (music plays) We are at the summit of White Horse Hills. Fantastic view back. Well, okay, you get to see my bandage. Let's see... oh, it's a bit hard to see in this camera, isn't it? but over there - that's where we've come from. Now you can see we're part of the Monadnocks. Carry on and we're just about to make our way over to this next granite dome. Okay let's go and have it, yeah, let's go ... (music plays) What really charms me about the Monadnocks is the way that you have this life that's so tiny and intricate. Down here in the gnammas and in the herb fields and the mosses and lichens...
and you also have the vastness and the sense of expansiveness that comes from the view, and we can see for miles - kilometres, even! and you get the sense that we're part of this really large and ancient land. Great introduction to some of the oddities of the Australian landscape so we have this Zamia. I love the way it it curls open when it's new. This is a really ancient kind of plant you can imagine this in an ancient landscape as well. Here we've got these great Bull Banksias. This one is a beauty!
So you can see it flowers into this incredible ball shape and on this one we can see an older flower. One of the seed pods from this. But if you look out here there's a softness to the undergrowth and a kind of fuzzy look about it. (music plays) We are now at the top of Mount Wells. Well, that was a bit of a climb! But, all good huts... deserve a climb, apparently! Feeling stronger and better than any other climb we've done so far. Oh, look at this Dad! Oh! We might get good reception tonight. What do you think of that aerial?
There's the old watchtower and the hut. it's the only hut on the trail...(Chairs!) with four sides. So let's go and check that out We'll have a see what the view from up there is... Yeah, maybe after a cuppa. I dunno, I felt really good at the end of that climb, surprisingly good! (music plays) Are we going this way? Yep! That's the Mount Wells hut. And good morning, day eleven. Heading down to Chadoora camp this morning I think we've got only about 14km to go. Did battle with the ticks last night!
Had to move our campsite at one stage. They were just literally racing towards us! And heading off with international man of mystery and Local Legend, Bob Holland. There he is.
Had a coffee, and breakfast, and look at this great start to the day! Oh, that's right, quick update. We had a bit of trouble with the SD card in Kath's camera last night. At the moment we've lost 10 days of her footage. So, aaargh! Jenny, Fiona and Gary have all headed off early - about ten minutes earlier than us and we'll probably see them at camp. They're quite quick on the trail.
May my words not be wasted this time! Here we go... Kaya koorda. good morning. It's another beautiful morning on Noongar boodja. It's day eleven. Eleven, eleven (in a bad Scottish accent - sorry!) That's Howie-licious. Let's see. Who's with us now? Dori walked on yesterday
to the next hut. Good on her! I didn't have it in me, that's for sure. So, hutting and walking on schedule with us at the moment - of course there's Local Legend Bob Holland. We've got Gary from Margaret River still on board. We've also got Jenny and Fiona. They're walking down to Dwellingup and then getting a ride down to Harvey - Quinndanning and walking back up. Two days to Dwellingup now, so we'll get there tomorrow and there's definitely a buzz of excitement for beds, showers and and hot cooked pub meals. Oh, and real coffee! Wow! But meanwhile, let's not lose sight of where we are. I mean - look at this!
Hiking real talk, ladies. When you are hiking, you will need to pee. I'm refining my pee technique. It's getting better, because my legs are getting stronger! Just try to find a spot where it's a little bit downhill and you can work against the gradient and just, you know, grab hold of your trousers and use that to counterbalance. There you go! Real talk! I have a cloth that looks like this one - but it's not this one because - see - I'm touching this! I use my not Srirarcha... actually hand sanitiser and I have a little bag I keep in my pocket and that's my pee cloth. When I get into camp at the end of the day, pee cloth gets a wash - a rinse out and a rinse
out with a couple of drops of tea tree oil. Fresh as a daisy! No toilet paper in the bush - thank you! (music plays) (Bob and Kath singing) ...what we poor convicts go through. Singing Tooral liooral liaddity, Singing Tooral liooral liay, Singing Tooral liooral liaddity, And we're bound for Botany Bay Um, camp here at, um, hold on.
Yeah, just forgot what f@#!en camp we were in! Anyway! We've ended up in Chadoora campsite. We were here at 11 a.m and left at, like, quarter to seven which is the earliest so far. Gary pushed on to Dwellingup, so we've got Bob, Fiona and Jenny here tonight. Depends on whose map you look at, we'll be hitting either 198 or 202 kilometres so we're going to call it 200 kilometres at Dwellingup. That's us done...
um we're done for the first 200 and one-fifth of our total journey. Feeling good, feeling strong. I think we can make it! If we have a look through there, that's our tent site for the night One water tank. There's plenty of water in it, though. Outside table, lots of firewood. You can have fires. Someone's drying out their tea bag so they can have a second go at it later on! We walked into camp, also... Oh hi! Oh hi hi hi!
There's Bob down in the corner, there's Jenny and... Another little thing - I've just managed to spot a famous YouTube star. Well, you may not recognise her. She's normally got a beanie on. But here we go, let's try... Fi, how was the track today? Superb day! Thank you for asking! Oh no, no worries, no worries. We'll make sure we put that in! Okay, thank you, and we'll see you later
Lovely little toilet this one! Da-dah! Right, I'll leave that door open, because when you sit here - oh, it's quite the view! (music plays) Morning, morning of day 12. Dwellingup today. Feels a little bit like Christmas, actually, with walking into a town with all their fancy food and their showers and flushing toilets, anyway. Basically ready to go. No rush, but probably 6 30. It was our earliest start yet. Kath's won the quote of the day... Maybe if we need to, on one of the hot days, we should set the alarm for four o'clock and leave by six (Leave by 5.30) Leave by 5 30! I hate walking in the heat more than I hate getting up in the dark! Awesome. Should be a good little day today. Nice and flat, a lot of railway -
old railway tracks we're going to be walking along and the Hotham railway runs along here The Hoffman, did you say? Possum? (Hotham) Hotham! Anyway, we might see a train later - patoot patoot (Woo woo!) Come on Howie, let's hit the road! Yeah, we're waiting for you! I am last! Come on Mr Demille! Great day for a stroll in the bush So we're about 4km from Chadoora hut heading towards Dwellingup Total of about 20 (km) I think today and we've definitely come into a different bit of forest - seeing a lot more fern and - different, sort of, a few different types of vegetation through here and a lot of leaf litter on the track Yeah, so there's a little glimpse of what we're sort of gonna be going through, maybe a little bit denser forest and changing plants as we go. It's quite exciting when you spot something new you haven't seen before and we get to name it because that's what we're doing! Although it's getting harder, I'm starting to run out of names. The whole botany naming job is a bit bit intense actually when you realise how many plants there are! Anyway onward to Dwellingup and there's Bob Woo Woo! The old railway line heading into Dwellingup- about 2k from here we'll be stopping at the - what's it called? the Etmilyn Siding. We'll be stopping at the Etmilyn Siding for a bit of a bit of a lunch. There's a road over there! Oh yeah, it's not lunch - it's gonna be second breakfast, for sure. Not even elevensies!
and here we are at the Etmilyn rail Siding As we're walking into town, we get to eat all the food that's left over! So yeah, today for second breakfast we're going to have some homemade muesli bars, which we made at home, and peanut butter I want to see you take the first bite - see how glumpy it is! (Music plays) (The way you're moving - it's got me moving my own feet - the greatest feeling - that i could ever dare to dream - is you, forever, moving next to me let's not waste time or take this slow - we've got miles behind us but miles to go, so let's just break this down to the simplest truth - you and I as one, will always be better than two) Well, here we go folks. 12 days, 200k and we've walked into Dwellingup. It's the information centre here Lovely! It's brilliant! Quick loo stop, sign the book, and off to the cafe (music plays) Ah day 13. And we are clean! and we are clean! We are! I think I may have even had three showers by now We've been cleaning clothes, our packs. Had a nice little dinner last night with Bob, Jenny, Fi. Met up with Gary as well and Brian - Bob's support crew. So Gary's gone on ahead
because he skipped past Chadoora and walked some enormous, enormous distance so he'll be a day ahead of us - hopefully leaving us some fun notes in the books And Jenny and Fi have got a lift back down to Harvey-Quindanning and they're walking back up towards us so at some point our paths should cross on the track Had a look through our resupply box. We bought a couple little extra things to throw in there a few crackers to have with our hummus etc. Had a nice big comfy bed last night, but we both had trouble going to sleep! So, I don't know - Too comfortable for you, Howie! It might have been too comfy! It looks like they're doing another burn off out behind Dwellingup somewhere. It's not gonna affect us hopefully, unless it gets out of control. But it does impressive things to the clouds - yeah, amazing!
We saw some Spanish broom before and some poppies - remind us of the Camino! Aw!
2021-04-12 23:38
