Day 20: Swamp Oak to Murray
We acknowledge the Nyoongar People as the traditional custodians of the land and waters along the Bibbulmun Track
We head off through the Xanthorrhoeas into a misty morning. I trip on a rock and tear the knee of my lightweight rainpants. A bit of Tenacious Tape makes for a semi-permanent repair.
Overview map for the day.
Today is a demanding day with a longer distance of just over 19 kilometres, a lot of showers and an overgrown path necessitating pushing through wet vegetation.
There is also quite a bit of elevation gain and loss in the undulating ups and downs throughout the day that we find more tiring than a single climb. The forest, however, is beautiful, and the camp for the night stunningly situated on the Murray River.
Amazing spiderwebs at ground level. They are horizontal, with a funnel opening for the spider. With the dew shining in the sunlight, they look like scattered scraps of cling wrap.
Chorizema ilicifolium
Hovea sp
Some delightful sections of casuarina. They create the same muffled atmosphere as pine trees, but there is a diversity of understorey species beneath them that you never find in Australian plantation pine forests.
Hybanthus calycinus in the violet family
No expansive views, just glimpses through the trees today
Cyrtostylis robusta often grows on southerly aspects, usually in shade. The tiny brownish green flowers are hard to spot!
Pterostylis glebosa
Seas of peas!
Bossiaea aquifolium (Water bush)
It drizzles for much of the day (hence few images in the afternoon) and the track is now quite overgrown, not least because the pale yellow Trymalium droops across the path. Fortunately, it’s very soft to push trough, not like the prickly scrub in Tasmania that tears lightweight rain jackets to shreds in an hour. The Visps do soak through after extended rain at the shoulders and chest strap, and the front of the thighs and knees in the pants, but it is a big ask of lightweight jackets to manage this kind of vegetation. Mine are holding up better than Geoff’s with his heavy pack overwhelming the jacket’s hydrostatic head. However, the great thing about these jackets and pants is that we can hang them in the hut and ten minutes later they’re dry. Astonishing.
We arrive at the hut and I tell you, that hot cup of tea is welcome. Hot chocolate is great but it’s just a bit too heavy for longer multidays.
We’ve been enjoying the company of the other hikers enormously: there is such a wide variety of folk from every walk of life. Due to our rest day at Monadnocks, we are now a day behind the single-hutting couple who started their hike on the same day as us, as well as two younger solo hikers who double hutted at Mt Wells and who have now teamed up. We were able to catch up in town (our first night, their second) but, every time we arrive in camp, it’s a great pleasure to read their banter in the logbooks.
We meet a rough diamond who spends a fair bit of time on the track, and knows every inch of it. He has a dry sense of humour and an amazing memory for faces. Over the week or so our paths coincide, he meets hikers he has met just once before, sometimes five or ten years ago. He remembers their life circumstances and where they crossed paths on the track. He even still has many of their phone numbers! Without exception, they are delighted to catch up.
Murray Hut is elevated to reduce flood damage
Another couple of about our age are wonderful too, with sharp inventive minds and fascinating life experience. Actually, everyone we meet has really interesting life stories! I get the sense almost immediately, as I did with the couple who started the same day as us, that they will become good friends.
It’s a relief to hear that others have found today challenging, constantly pushing through wet vegetation. We are all a bit tired and wilting around the table when two delightfully energetic young bucks bounce into camp. They have just crunched out 50km NOBO and it is exhausting just watching them!
“We’re hoping to finish the entire track in 21 days,” one says. Not faster? “Nah, that wouldn’t be any fun!”
They organise their bedding, eat a lot of food, gather firewood, light the fire and do vlogs for their Instagram followers. Later I realise that they are quite famous, or at least as famous as hikers can be in Australia! They are double-hutting tomorrow to get into Dwellingup for lunch with friends! Later I hear that they do, in fact, reach their 21 day goal. Such projects are not to our taste, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate them. Well done, Cam and Matt!
The campsites here are pretty but it is very wet. We’ll wait for our tyvek.
The river is directly in front of the hut, down a few steps. It has flooded recently with a wide, very slippery muddy bank. I tiptoe out for a shot in the evening light, but it is way too cold for a swim.
Murray River
