Thursday October 20, 29.1km/18.1mi

White Horse Hills Campsite (150.8/443m) to Chadoora Campsite (179.9/296m) (WA)

I woke up from the upper bunk of the shelter, and went downstairs to have breakfast and join Sam (who was already up) at the picnic table. I didn’t notice it last night, but someone had arranged a small bouquet, ha!

I packed up and walked out at 7:45 with Sam, and I quickly outpaced him going up the hill. I love uphills in the morning. The top was another summit, with this cool split boulder.

And the view from the top of South White Horse Hill was neat, it even had a small pond in a depression in the granite.

The descent back into the forest was nice and gentle, and I was greeted by these burned out trees at the bottom.

I’m still amazed they survive so well like that. The rest of the morning was on a flat wide part like this.

I’ve noticed these ferns starting to appear everywhere, I think I’m hiking into a different climate zone.

I had a bigger climb up to Mt. Wells, like 200m. It was steep on that round gravel, so progress wasn’t fast. At least the top had a nice tower and hut.

I climbed halfway up the tower, which was the limit.

I would’ve liked to be able to go all the way to the top, to get a view above the trees. I climbed the ladder back down and explored the hut.

It is the only 4-wall enclosed shelter on the Bibbulmun, so it’s a neat landmark. It used to be the fire-watcher’s residence, and had a kitchen with fireplace, and a couple of bedrooms.

Every campsite has a couple of books, the green one is a trail log (where you sign in your name/date/address/destination), and the other is a freeform journal to write your thoughts/poems/drawings/etc.

This drawing seemed especially applicable!

I had lunch at one of the tables, and headed out as two northbound guys arrived. On my exit, I noticed someone had even made a little flower garden!

The descent from Mt Wells was another easy gradual one, and I hiked the rest of the afternoon on a flat, wide trail. There were a few interesting artifacts along the way, like this old piece of mining machinery.

As I get closer to the coast, I’m seeing new plants, like these purple flowers.

And I saw another Echidna! These are supposed to be rare, but I’ve seen one 3 days in a row now.

I arrived to the Chadoora Campsite at 3pm, intending to stay for a break and move on. But some brief light rain came in, and I ended up unpacking and setting up for the night.

There were two women already there on an overnight trip, Barbara and Corinne.They showed me this really old grass tree, which had 7 growth “heads,” meaning it was over 200 years old. Wow.

Sam arrived around dinnertime, and Tessa a little while later, so we had 5 of us sleeping in the shelter. This is the most people I’ve seen so far! Tomorrow is a short day into town, I’m excited for Dwellingup!