Tales from the Track

Aernout Nieuwkerk, UK 5 August 2020 I’m a Dutchman living in the UK and I had never been to Australia before, so walking the Bibbulmun Track was going to be the centrepiece of my first Australian adventure! Walking the Bibbulmun Track end-to-end had long featured high on my wish list. When I started in Kalamunda, […]

Michael O’Connor, NSW 17 January 2020 Michael on the Track Why would a 68 year-old man with post polio syndrome who didn’t like walking in the first place set out to walk the entire Bibbulmun Track? Friends said “well, he is Irish”. However, as I have spent two-thirds of my life in Australia, I claim […]

Robert Carter, NSW 17 January 2020 Bushwalking is a long-held passion of mine, but many of life’s day-to-day challenges deflect us from those things we hold precious. My work to life-style balance was way out of kilter—luckily Kylie, my wife and soul mate, recognised this.  She convinced me to take stock and move away from […]

Sandy Maley, WA 16 January 2020 Sandra planning her maintenance About six years ago I walked from Walpole to Northcliffe.  I’d previously walked and paddled extensively in the southwest but several sections were new to me. I already loved the karri around Deep River and had special memories of paddling down the Shannon. On this […]

Carolyn Riordan and Penni Ellis, NSW 16 January 2020 When our Dad, Peter Hewett, was working for the Forest Department and part of the planning team for the original development of a long-distance walk trail in WA, Carolyn and I were in high school, then living in Japan and Canberra.  Like most teenagers, we kind […]

Twynam Cunningham, WA 16 January 2020 At the halfway point. (The post sadly missing its directional arms after storm damage.) I had wanted to walk the Bibbulmun Track for years however the vastitudes of farming life meant I’d always been too busy to contemplate even a week away. This all changed when our son Theo […]

Claus Steensbech, Roskilde, Denmark 15 January 2020 “It is an old dream of mine to walk the Pacific Crest Trail but it would take too long.  The Bibbulmun Track offers the same type of remote, challenging experience but also has a really good structure with shelters which give a certain degree of comfort. I have walked […]

Allan McKechnie, Bruce Seligmann and Peter West, WA 15 January 2020 In the Beginning… In the beginning…. It was a bold suggestion that BP made one day for he and me and Pete to walk “the Track”, one way   “The Track” of which he spoke the Bibbulmun by name only 1000 ks or so […]

Hammy, Carol, Amber and Gordon Russell, Scotland 9 April 2019 We first came across the Track in 1994 when Hammy and I were on a camping trip in Western Australia.  Hammy said at that time he would like to walk the whole Track one day. A couple of decades passed, two kids arrived, and as […]

Tamsin Read, Rolf, Katherine and Zephyr Heidecker , Fremantle, WA 7 April 2017 Before the kids came along we spent some time living in Chile, then returned to our Fremantle home, and spent time sailing on our yacht Equilibrium. When the kids were small we took them on a sailing trip from Sydney to Perth […]

Lucy Ridsdale (aka Wildgoose), Perth, WA 13 December 2016 My love of walking, and by walking I mean adventurous journeying on foot, started in 2001. I was living in France and heard an interview on the radio with a man who had just walked the Camino de Santiago. A strange knowing arose in me. I […]

Eric Bow , California, USA 6 December 2016 Many tourists travel to Western Australia to enjoy the pristine beaches around Perth, take a ferry over to Rottnest Island or explore the outback in a jeep.  I didn’t.  I came to hike the Bibbulmun Track.  I’m a thru-hiker, a triple crowner, which means I’ve completed end-to-end […]

Sun-Mi Clyburn, WA 6 December 2016 I looked up at the stars through the thick canopy of the karri trees,  took another sip of green tea from my aluminum mug and moved closer to the fire, the only source of light and warmth for tens of kilometers. My fiancée Kirk and I had made it […]

Colin Broun, WA 6 December 2016 Liz, on the Track We had not walked any of the Bibbulmun Track since 2008, so with the promise of at least six days of autumn sunshine my wife Liz, good friend Stan and I off. We took a taxi from Collie to the Glen Mervyn Dam, planning to […]

Alain Bourguignon, France 6 December 2016 My name is Alain Bourguignon, I’m from France, and I have just completed the Bibbulmun Track, filled up the form and registered as an end-to-ender. I didn’t have much time when I filled the form, and there was not much space to tell enough about my experience of the […]

Michael and Veronica Schulze, Germany 6 December 2016 Veronica and the Nothernmost Waugual In June 2013 my husband Michael and I finished our end-to-end between Albany and Kalamunda, from where we took the bus to Bridgetown, hitchhiked into Donnelly River Village and walked back another 300 km to Walpole—we loved the Bibbulmun Track that much! […]

Su Becket, Perth, WA This is a story of a very special person, Su Becket, walker extraordinaire, and her two daughters.  Like the Yellow Brick Road in L. Frank Braum’s famous story The Wizard of Oz, the Bibbulmun Track lays its own claim to fame as a magical creation. Alana and Lindsey Reid were taken […]

Stuart Parks, Perth, WA 22 November 2016 People walk the Track for any number of reasons; some personal, some for a cause and some just because it is there. For me it was a combination of many reasons. I don’t come from a hiking background, and in fact had never done any sizeable walks, especially […]

Brigita Ferencak, WA 24 September 2015 Brigita Ferencak is a BTF volunteer and Life Member of the Foundation. She has completed two end-to-end walks and has a special affinity with the Track as she explains in her story: Lao-Tse, a philosopher of the 6th century B.C., made the statement, “The journey of 1000 miles begins […]

Stephen Van Mierlo, Attadale, Perth 26 August 2014 My Bibbulmun Track Journey Steve’s Bibbulmun Blob This ‘Blob’ is dedicated to my daughter who taught me success is about self-belief and following your passion, my son who treats everyday as the ‘best day ever’ and finally to a dear supportive friend, my wife.The ethos of my […]

Michael and Veronika Schulze, Germany 16 April 2014 In Germany in the late 1990s we read about the Bibbulmun Track in the Australian Geographic. We forgot about it for a while, then in 2010 Michael decided he wanted to walk the Larapinta Trail and thought a section of the Bibbulmun Track would be good training, […]

Barbara Steiner, WA 26 June 2013 In September 2011 I took part in a guided 8-day walking tour along the famous Bibbulmun Track, and one of my long-held dreams came true. I saw the wildflowers of Western Australia in spring as nature intended. The group in Dwellingup We covered between 10 and 14.5km of the […]

Dave Hartley, WA 25 June 2013 In 1990 I set out on a very different Bibbulmun Track to that of today—no shelters and very few camping spots with any facilities. From memory, not good these days, I found four campsites, possessing just a concrete fire ring with a plate and hook, and a toilet. Evidently […]

Penny Allen and Hilke Kruger (the SA Chooks), South Africa 15 June 2013 To walk nearly 1000km and to be pretty much away from civilisation and self- sufficient for 50 days appeals to only a few crazies. Well I confess I am crazy. And Hilke must be too. The two of us came all the […]

Emily Pinkus, WA 6 March 2012 Emily in the Showgrounds. On the 13th October 2008 Simon and I set out from Kalamunda to walk the Bibbulmun Track end-to-end. We were no athletes when we started, but two months and 963 kilometres later we arrived in Albany fitter, healthier, happier—and sweatier. The first week was tough, […]