Saturday October 15, 13.5km/8.4mi

Northern Terminus / Kalamunda (0.0/296m) to near Golden View Lookout (13.5/230m) (WA)

I had a ton to do this morning, and barely enough time to do it. I found a shopping plaza with a Woolworths (grocery store) and Post office, so I wouldn’t have to make trips to 2 places, which is much harder without a car. I bought over $200 worth of food at Woolworths, and most of it I shipped at the post office. I’ve done these resupplies tons of times, but it still takes time to buy the food, strip all the excess packaging, fit it into an appropriate size box, and figure out the proper mailing address. I had 3 boxes labelled and ready to go at 11:55am, and the PO closed 5 minutes later…close call!

I then took a bus up to Kalamunda, which is the starting town. I got off one stop early at the hardware store, which is called Mitre10. I loved the joke at the entrance – “There was a king who was 12 inches tall…”

I bought my fuel canister, and went directly over to the Visitor Centre to buy a guidebook. The employees were super helpful and friendly, and even printed a map of a detour for me. I signed the register for Bibbulmun hikers, it’s a fun way to keep track of who’s hiking, there is a register in each town along the trail.

I walked a block to an old pub which had some interesting lunch specials…. chicken Parm on a bed of…fries. Ha! Nobody here seems to include ketchup with their meals, and after I used up a third set of ketchup cups, the waitress finally just gave me the whole ketchup bottle.

I walked over to start of the trail. The Northern Terminus had a cool sign and a little park to celebrate the start/end of the Bibbulmun track.

I guess I should be expecting to see lots of snakes?

My first trail marker…of many! It a Wagyl, or rainbow serpent.

And at 3pm, I started my hike! It felt good to be moving, my legs had become restless. And I just strolled along and relaxed, with nothing else on the agenda today except hiking. Almost immediately, I saw this huge bird.

It starts off as a nice trail thru an old golf course.

After a couple km, I entered Kalamunda National park.

The vegetation here is so different, it definitely felt like I was far from home. The trail became even nicer.

Since I’m so close to civilization, there was a brief roadwalk, to connect two different forests. It only lasted 5 minutes.

This was a VERY loud bird. I’ll have to search my guidebook for it’s name.

A camel farm! Unfortunately the owner had just died last month, and all the camels were sold off to other camel farms. Bummer, I really wanted to see (and ride) a camel.

For the rest of the afternoon, I hiked in some burned areas.

Just before sunset, a loud noise of an animal crashing thru brush almost gave me a heart attack. But it was just a couple of cute kangaroos!

After another km of walking, I found a campsite off the main track. It’s near a road and there are some car-campers here too, so hopefully it stays quiet. It was a quiet and relaxing afternoon, after such a rushed morning.

Tomorrow I am forced to sleep in, since the trail crosses a dam in a couple km, and it doesn’t open until 8am.