- Start date: 12 October 1999
- Age When Completed: 63
- Direction Walked: South to North
- Others in Group:
Bob Scimgeour, Keith Banwell, Brian Wright.
General Comments
This will be our last night on the Bib Track. Tomorrow we will walk into Kalamunda with a big grin on our face and finish what has been a very interesting, very satisfying, often challenging but always greatly enjoyable journey. We have shivered in the cold, sweltered in the heat, laughed at hail, howling wind and driving rain, staggered up steep hill and mountains, descended into gullies and deep mist covered valleys, waded along wild oceans and through the murky waters of the wetlands - wouldn’t want to miss any of it.
We met interesting people from many nations and enjoyed the special fellowship, friendship and camaraderie among ourselves and with fellow hikers. We enjoyed the friendly atmosphere at the little townships we passed through and stopped at for a night of indulgence…hot showers, washing machines, big steaks and of course a bottle of red.
Food/Supplies Comments
We have greatly enjoyed the leadership, friendship and the extraordinary skills of the ‘Trek Chefs’.
Personal Reactions
Yes it was all a great and very special adventure: The wild windswept coast of the Southern Ocean (observing the formation of king waves), majestic forests (Tingle, Karri, Jarrah, Wandoo, Sheoaks…), waterlogged wetlands, where trekking meant wading thigh high through muddy waters for successive days, open plains, blackboy-banksia-paperbark country, lively creeks and tranquil rivers, exploding night skies of awesome closeness and clarity, sunrises and sunsets which can only be experienced, not described, awaking to the birdsong at dawn, wildflowers in all their splendour, birds and animals in their natural habitat. It was all just ‘magic’.
When some years ago I met a true blue Aussie in Spain who taught me the Australian ‘Bushman Song’ which I feel it is worthwhile to keep alive.
‘I am just an old bush lad, but I am not as mad as you’ll hear some people say,
I look a little rough, but have a Lady Love and all the flies do come my way.
I live in the bush, with whiskers on me moosh,
and I never wash for days,
but the dirt will keep, till the end of the week,
that’s
the good old bushmans’ way.
I cook my ticker in a kerosene tin, boil my tea in a rusty can,
I have got a jam tin cup, with the sides turned up and use my shovel as a frying pan.