Wednesday October 26, 25.6km/15.9mi

Collie Town (320.5/191m) to Glen Mervyn Lake (343.1/215m) (WA) +3.0 Collie connector trail

After another shower, breakfast, laundry, and some more breakfast, I walked out of town at noon. I stopped by this little museum, the admission was only $3! It was neat to learn about a defunct energy source.

I reentered the tranquility of the forest on that 3km connector trail, it’s nice to be back.

An hour later, I saw TWO of those bobtail lizards next to the trail. They don’t seem to move or do anything, but I’m still wary.

The Collie River was flowing fast and deep. Unfortunately there was a bit of litter and graffiti in this area, probably because of all the dirt roads that give easy access.

This tree swing was cool, I’ve never seen one so tall.

The trail briefly joined a road for 100m to get across the river on a bridge.

An hour later, I passed the Mungalup dam and lake. This is the town’s water supply, so no access to the lake was allowed.

It was another uneventful afternoon in a green tunnel, but the forest kept it interesting by providing kangaroos, lizards, and loud cockatoos. This was the first junction all day, it goes 20km on a side-trail to another dam/lake where you can’t swim. No thanks.

I walked a few more minutes to the Yabberup Campsite, where I stopped briefly to get water. There were 4 people already there, who were confused about why I was hiking onward. I said I planned on hiking another hour (it was 5pm) and camping wherever I find a flat spot. It’s amazing how many people here *only* camp at/in the shelters. They are nice, but sometimes they aren’t spaced out where you need them. It was an easy final hour of hiking on a flat trail. I kept seeing these huge dirt mounds… creepy.

I got to the Glen Mervyn Lake, and by now it was 6pm. Time to start looking for a campsite.

This area is popular with car campers, which meant while there are many flat spots for camping, many of them are soiled with food scraps, used toilet paper, or dirty charcoal logs. Blech. I finally found a clean spot across a tiny stream, so it was inaccessible to cars (and therefore most people).

There is an animal walking around my tent as I write this, turns out it was a curious duck. That’s a new one. At least it wasn’t a wild pig, possum, or any other nuisance mammal. There are 3 or 4 groups car camping nearby, I can hear them singing along loudly to their music, hopefully that doesn’t last too long….