Charles Drummond (Charlie D)

Track Towns and Supplies

• How many days did you stay in Track Towns? 3
• Did you have any issues finding food/supplies? No
• The Visitor Information Centres were fantastic in holding my food drops, would be helpful if they stocked more "Regular" sized dehydrated food - most were "Small". Otherwise all towns supplied everything I needed to suit my Gluten Free dietary requirements.

Particular Track Towns that you would return to:

• Dwellingup
• Balingup
• Donnelly River Village
• Walpole
• Denmark

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Your Story or Advice for Others

General Comments
One of the best Hikes I've done. Amazed and thankful for the work of the Foundation, volunteers, Angels , and Parks and Wildlife for designing, creating, maintaining this wonderful walk. The generosity and kindness of everyone I met along the way was, without exception, fantastic. Get to love Pea Gravel :)

Your Best Equipment
A toss up between my bivvy - protection against armour plated March Flies and mossies - and my walking poles....

Your Worst Equipment
My cold climate goretex hiking boots - too heavy, stiff and hot, better with lightweight, breathable hiking shoes.

Advice for Others
Start in mid-October at latest, my November start put me into fire season in December - got a bit gnarly in Williams Bay with smoke from a planned burn a few km.s north of the hut blowing through the camp!! Also more wild flowers.....

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Trip Details

How you completed the Bibbulmun Track:

• All at once

• How many days did it take you to complete the Track? 47
• Who did you complete the Track with? Solo (primarily)
• Was undertaking your hike the PRIMARY/MAIN purpose of your TRAVEL from where you currently live? No
• What first prompted you to walk the Bibbulmun Track? Word of mouth/friends
  

What did you use to navigate the Track?

• BT Maps
• BT Guidebooks
• App (please specify)
• Nothing – just relied on the Waugals and my intuition!
• - All Trails initially - but that App's GPS failed, then the acquired the Bibbulmun App in case of geographical embarrassment otherwise relied pretty much wholly on the Waugal signs and intuition!

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Your Experience

• Availability of information: Great - Planning was easy for this walk, plenty of information through the Website and App. Some good telephone help too when calling to confirm if Diversions etc. were still in place. Good help from the Water Authority too when approaching the Torbay Inlet crossing re conditions which had been opened just before I crossed it.
• Amount of Wildlife Encountered: Excellent - A Wedge Tail Eagle lifting off about 5m over my head from a tree with it's flight path straight down the road in front of me through the pine plantations on the Grimwade Hut Diversion. Made the Diversion worth while - Awesome. A Nanking Falcon hovering about 6m away from me eyeing me off, in the low scrub in the dune country just East of the Long Point Hut. I stood stock still and held my breath to make that joyful moment last. Oh, and the most brilliantly coloured 6ft Tiger snake lying across a path south of Gringer Creek Hut with a glowing golden amber belly and deep dark green back - truly a beautiful animal. It owned the path, refused to move and watched me carefully as I circled around it through the bush.

Favourite Section
The Donnelly River valley section south of the Village. Beautiful Country and forest, cool days, light rain at night to the sound of owls and frogs, and days of constant bird song all day long - priceless.

Highlight of your trip
Emerging out of the forest after 4 or 5 weeks walking under tree cover onto the Pingerup Plains and open sky, cool breezes, with the sound of the surf heard from the Lake Maringup hut and the promise of the beach just a couple of days away!!

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