Bibbulmun Track: Hills Forest Discovery Centre to South Ledge (Return Trip)

Hills Forest to South Ledge: 4.25km (8.5km return)

Okay, so we’d planned to do 16km all up, but B forgot his raincoat and … well, as expected, it rained (excuses excuses :)

Today was the official beginning of our end to end walk of the Bibbulmun track, a long-distance walking track that is almost 1000km long and stretches from the hills town of Kalamunda to the southern town of Albany. Though, seeing as we only have one car, we should probably be calling it our *end to end to end* walk because, until we can work out a better system (ie, find a second car) most of our walks are going to be return trips. Our aim is to try to walk at least once every two weeks and we’re in no hurry to finish, so it may take us anything up to twenty years before we can call ourselves end to enders. Though if we’re brave enough, things could speed up a bit next year if we decide to do some two or three day walks, overnighting at shelters.

We joined the trail at the Hills Forest Discovery Centre and a short walk through a nice thick growth of jarrah, marri & wandoo trees to the Weir View Lookout. I’d forgotten how pretty the iron-stained dirt looked in winter, still damp from recent rain and edged with lush growth (well, lush by Australian standards, anyway). The air smelled of wattle and eucalyptus. Black cockatoos winged overhead and a couple of rabbits darted across the trail in front of us, so quick I was convinced that their fur was green, instead of brown. It was nice to see the dam looked nearly full – I’ve never seen so much water in it.

The trail continued to wind downhill, towards Mundaring Weir. Up here, the signs of civilization are never far away. Cars, motorbikes on the road nearby. Aeroplanes that may or may not be thunder. For a short while, we followed the water pipes that carry water to Kalgoorlie and stopped long enough to put our ears against them to find out if you can actually hear the water flowing through. You can. Or maybe it was the pumps we heard. Then past the Mundaring Hotel where a group of bikers lounged under the veranda, a couple of shiny BMWs and a Triumph parked out front. Brought back memories, but no, I prefer to be on foot these days. My new boots feel like they’re custom made and I want to walk all day.

After crossing the Mundaring Weir we headed uphill again towards South Ledge and the Golden View Lookout, past great views of the valley. Wildflowers are emerging already – wattle, little purple orchids (?Purple flags), lots of yellow buttercupy things (darn, I need to get myself a wildflower book). It started raining just as we reached the lookout. The Mundaring Weir is about one and half kilometres back the way we came and 120 metres below, but the view over it is worth walking to.

Then we had to turn around. “If it stops raining when we get back to the car, we can do a few kilometres towards Ball Creek Campsite,” they told me. But we didn’t. We went to the Lavender Tea house instead and ate Lavender Scones and Lavender Cheesecake and drank tea and hot chocolate and made plans to walk again next week, hopefully a tad further.