Bibbulmun Track Day 22

Day 22

18 km

Cum 447.8 km

Camped: Blackwood

Can’t say that I slept very well, despite having the whole place to myself for another night.

After watching some news in the morning , I was off a little before 06h45.

The first attraction enroute today was just a couple of kilometres out of Balingup. It is the Golden Valley Tree Park. The walk through very old trees was pretty awesome. There are oaks planted by the Cleveland Family in 1898!! The location of where they first camped and ended up settling. It is the largest arboretum in WA. Due to the fact that it has many European species it would look amazing in autumn, with changing colours.

As I made my way down south, the track was fairly uneventful. At one stages it joins part of the Greenbush loop track. These tracks take us to the location of an old mining ramp where tin ore was dumped from 20 ton trucks. Funny cause 20 ton trucks are super super small!! The mine was called Vultan Tin Mine.

Mining started in the late 1800s. The track also took me past Mt Jones Dam. The water from here was used for processing of the tin, using gravity sluicing.

There were a good few climbs today. One of them opened up to a great view of farmland . This was going to be a taste of what the latter part of the walk would hold.

Coming out of the forest there is a walk alongside farm dirt roads and then through Southampton Farm. Had to walk past a bunch of cows. Luckily they moved away from me and not towards me….hehehehe…phew!

The views from the top of this paddock were pretty good, before turning into a forestry road- pine plantation. This was the last 2km or so before the hut.

Blackwood hut is situated on top of a pretty high hill. It has great views but is quiet exposed.

I had read online that there is a mouse problem here, so I set up my tent straight up, won’t be sleeping in the hut. There is also a re-vegetation project happening, so lots of green protective boxes around young plantings.

Glad that I didn’t hike yesterday through the rain; as I would have likely missed all of today’s views.

I was joined in the hut many hours after my arrival by Dave and Katie and then an hour later by Peter. Peter is doing an E2E and the others just a short section.

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