Wednesday October 19, 33.3km/20.7mi

Nerang Campsite (118.1/329m) to White Horse Hills Campsite (150.8/443m)
(WA) + 0.6km to Boonering Hill

I was awake before 6am in the brightly lit tent, and read my book for awhile before getting moving at 7:30. All morning the trail traveled thru flatland forests.

Some of the trees were impressively large, especially when framed against the tiny grass-trees.

I found it hilarious that someone put up a sign for the Serpentine River, which was just a dry streambed.

I arrived to the Gringer Creek campsite for an early 11am lunch, and found one other hiker there named Tessa. She had camped here last night, and hadn’t left yet, spending the morning organizing all her stuff and planning the rest of her hike. She was fun to talk with, but I wanted to get moving before it got really hot (forecast for 30C). I said goodbye and continued thru the flatland forest, quickly crossing a hot sunny highway.

For an hour I walked thru a nice shaded forest, paralleling some dirt service road for trucks.

As I walked on, I could see the road served some sort of tree plantation.

Yup, looked like pine trees. They were so small, so maybe a nursery, and not for lumber?

After departing the tree farm, I had a steep but short climb up to Boonering Hill (524m). It was a cool exfoliating granite dome.

I spent awhile on the summit, enjoying the breeze and the sun. I put my pack next to the summit cairn to catch all the UV light, so it would smell less, ha!

The view to the west was a new perspective to me.

I descended from the summit and re-joined the main Bibbulmun (the summit was a 300m side-trail), and spent the last couple hours walking to camp. There was another cool granite slab on top of Kimberling Hill (505m).

I arrived to White Horse Hills Campsite at 5:30 and met Sam, a friendly Aussie who had many of my same interests. He had just gotten a resupply at that last road crossing, and carried in a steak for tonight! He kindly offered me some, and we swapped other foods too. It got dark at 7pm, and we both went to bed around 8pm. Tessa arrived around 9pm as I was reading my book.
Only 2 more days until my first town, Dwellingup….