Bibbulmun Track = holiday track

The Bibbulmun Track is a wonderful surprise - a real holiday after the AT. I absolutely love it. Why? Hiking is so easy here. The terrain is so easy, that I could hike about more than 50 km per day - but what for? It is so nice and relaxing, that I decided to take it slow. Everything is new and interesting. When there is a noise in the forest, I still expect to see a deer or a bear. But here it is either a cangaroo (there are plenty) or a feral pig. The birds are gorgeous. They all look like they have escaped a zoo, but I guess normal birds here DO look like parrots. They probably are parrots... Well, they do make a lot of noise in the morning to wake me up. Instead of pine trees there is jarrah (eucalyptus) and grass trees. And of course there are poisonous snakes and spiders, but I better do not think about those.

View from a hut

The biggest surprise though are the huts: The trail is fairly new, so the huts are not older than a maximum of 10 years. They are much bigger than AT huts and there is no mice problem (they have possums instead, but they are not as bad as mice). The huts are a great place for an extended lunch break because they provide ample shade. Usually there is plenty of reading material there, too - lots of Reader's Digest, which seems to be an Australian favourite. Each hut has a rainwater tank, so water is not an issue either. There are campsites beside the hut, so I don't have to deal with snoring hikers - but I am usually alone anyway. There also is a pit toilet and I do not know how they manage, but these toilets don't smell. There is usually even toilet paper at the toilets. And all this is completely free! A real treat.

Wagaul trail marker

The trail is fairly well marked with triangel markers, there is an excellent guidebook and a lot of resupply towns, so life is really easy right now. I enjoy it to the fullest! Usually I get up at 7 am, start hiking at 8 am and have about 16 km in by noon. I then have a 3 to 4 hour lunch break to avoid the heat and hike another 16 km in the late afternoon. It gets dark around 8.30 pm, so there is plenty of daylight. The only thing that surprises me is that there are not more other hikers - this is such a great trail!!!!!!