Bibbulmun track - Kalamunda to Dwellingup
Day 1
21.9 km
Cum 21.9km
I was so excited to have my last night in a bed, that I decided I was going to enjoy it by being awake apparently, and didn’t sleep from 1am. This is definitely not ideal!
Got up at 05h30 and had my shower and a quick breakfast. Packed the rest of my stuff and waited until 7am rolled around do that I could go to the bus stop.
The bus took about an hour to get to Kalamunda and was just part of the public transport network. The bus station is just a few hundred meters from the start of the track. In the final one hundred meters it just started bucketing down with rain… Great way to start the track… pretty drenched with cold rain!
I waited it out as I wanted a photo at the northern terminus of the track- and my start point.
It took me probably 30min to cover the first kilometer as I stopped and spoke to a few people walking their dogs. They were very friendly and wished me all the best… along with some other stories.
The track was well marked until I lost the markers (wauguls as they are called here) and meandered down a gully. Useless as my GPS was at this moment… it was showing I was 3 or 4 km away. So I followed my nose and found a trail which lead to THE trail and markers.
I met up with a day group of screechy , school trip teens, but luckily they got ahead and was quiet again.
The next group was also school kids, but they were on a 2 day trip and all had pretty heavy looking packs. Met them at Golden View Lookout. I chatted to their teachers, who offered me blister plaster ,which I declined… famous last words 😉 ! Fleximol is apparently very good… swears by it . Two of the girls asked me how long I was hiking for, and a gave them the quick spiel.
Mundaring Wier or Dam is the next stop along the route. Not sure why the trail takes us down and then up a whole load of stairs , when we could have just walked along the dam wall?? I feel the weight of my pack now for sure. I estimate it weighs between 13-15kg with 3L of water and 7 days food.
I decide that it would be best to try and stop at the Perth Hills Discovery Centre, rather than push ahead to my initial planned first camp site of Ball Creek. A bit over the continuous stop and start rain downpours !
I did take one detour though… through the Mundaring Weir pub for a cider at about 14h30J I was good to go after a pint!
It was 1km until the visitors centre from there. When I came in though , spoke to the man who owns it and he said that they had a school group here, who have exclusive rights to use it.
I explained that I obviously meant no harm and was a bit tired. He agreed that I could camp around the back and use the showers!!! Yes- they have HOT water showers!!! Yeah!! I told him I would stay out of the kids way.
So all good.
A highlight today was the variety of wild flowers out. So many colours and varieties!
