Bibbulmun Trail day walk

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Well hello friends. I've come into the Perth Hills today in a place called Kalamunda. There's the town there. I'm at the start of the Bibbulmun Track. It is a long distance trail starting here and heading south east. I'll take you around this area to have a look. This is the northern terminus.

Coming over here this is a little map. I've just come out from Perth to Kalamunda. The track runs all the way from here down along there all the way to Albany. It is about 1003 kilometres. It is a fairly significant length of track. It is one of the easier of the through trails I know of, and I personally know of two people who have done this track. I've also watched just about every vlog of people who have hiked it so I probably just about know the entire track off by heart already. It is the middle of summer and although it is a nice overcast day about 31 degrees which is quite pleasantly warm. The other day when it got to 43 degrees in Perth, it got to 45 degrees here. That's not too unusual for this area so it is way too dangerous to be doing this long trail at this time of the year.

I do plan to do this at some stage when I semi-retire in a few years. I'm just putting it out there. Today I'm just having a look. I'm going to do the first couple of hours of the trail to get a feel for what it is like. The videos I've seen only do so much. I'll do some exploring whilst I've got some good overcast weather as it looks like the rest of this trip is going to be sunny and quite hot. I'm going to go to the start of the trail now. This is where it starts. There's the trail down there and 1003 kilometres down there is the other end of the trail.

I'm now looking out over a lookout. I'm about one and a half kilometres in looking over the Perth hills. It is quite fascinating here. The vegetation here is quite different to other parts of Australia I have explored.

A lot of the track and all the shelters along the track were actually built by prisoners from some of the prisons here. I think it's a really good way to do your sentence, to build something like this. I'm thoroughly enjoying it today. It is the best walk I've done so far on this trip and quite inspired to get back out here some time and doing the whole trek.

I've just come off the trail a little bit. I've reached a place called Rocky Pool. This is quite a popular swimming hole but as you can see there is no water at all in it at the moment as is typical in summer apparently. This is why people don't do the main track at this time of year as there is no water supply. During the winter and spring rainy season this is always full of water and a nice swimming area. I'm going to head up the hill a bit now.

I'm guessing I'm about five kilometres in now, about five kilometres from Kalamunda and 998 kilometres from Albany. It has been a very fascinating track going through these amazing granite landforms up and down the mountains. The track keeps on going that way forever just about. The sun came out just before and it is quite brutal (about 36 degrees) but it has gone overcast again. I'm stopping here for lunch before heading back to Kalamunda and going back it will be mostly uphill so there will be very fascinating views of the gorge going back. It's a very fascinating track. I think I will do this one at some stage in a few years when I semi-retire. This is one of the many things I want to do then. I won't be able to do it during the next big trip which is coming up next year but it's not the time of year to be doing these long treks with this weather but certainly autumn through to spring it would be amazing hiking through.

Anyway I'm going to start heading back, so thanks friends for joining me today and I'm going to catch you somewhere tomorrow. Until then, ciao for now.