2018 Bibbulmun Track
It’s the start of day 32 and as of today I have just on 175km left to go on my Bibbulmun Track adventure. I had a good sleep last night in my ‘Harry Potter cupboard’ as another hiker nicknamed the small single sleeping room at the Mount Wells hut. It may have been small but it stayed toasty and warm all night even though there was a heavy mist outside.
I’m in no hurry to make a start today as I only have 31km (only!). But even after I dawdle a bit I get back on the trail at 7:30am. Today is by no means a difficult day even with the hills but what does make it hard is the terrain which requires me to think about food placement which is something that hasn’t really been an issue for the past five weeks so this slows me down.
I get to White Horse Hills campsite at 11:30am and there are already two hikers there just finishing a break as they journey from Gringer and head to Mount Wells. I feel like I’m slow today and I am. I past two other pairs of hikers on the way including one pair who knows who I am and has been listening to the podcast over the previous weeks. They introduce themselves and we chat about our respective trips. It sounds like Gringer was busy last night with six people staying there.
About 5km out from my destination another hiker approaches and it’s a bit confusing as he doesn’t appear to be carrying a pack. He says hello to me by name and introduces himself. It turns out it’s Steve Sertis from the Bibbulmun Track Foundation who was in the area and seeing where I was from my online tracking system has come to say hello. We walks back with me to Gringer and we chat all things Track.
There are four scouts staying at Gringer for the night who have been out on a training hike for an upcoming Cape to Cape walk at the end of this month. One of them is happy to chat with me for the podcast and they have been doing some big distances including night hiking over the past couple of days. They finish up tomorrow morning at three Ways Roadhouse which is where I’ll be heading for breakfast.
I discovered last night that the Mundaring Weir Motel doesn’t do dinner on the night I’m going through so I may alter my schedule and put in a bigger day the day before so I get there around lunchtime instead but I’ll work that one out tomorrow.
Internet access has been good all day and I’m finally managing to catch up on my posting. As I sit here doing this post someone is hunting in the distance and every so often I hear gunfire. This is not surprising given I saw eight wild pigs this afternoon. Up until today, I had only seen one.
The fog settled in to Mt Wells shortly after dark last night and hung around until just before I left at 7:30am