Day 72: Mutton Bird to Sandpatch
We acknowledge the Nyoongar People as the traditional custodians of the land and waters along the Bibbulmun Track
A day along clifftops, with turbines to our left and spectacular ocean views to the right. Sunny blue skies initially followed by horizontal rain for variety!
Overview map for today
Use Bibbulmun Track Foundation Map 8: Denmark/Albany
Elevation profile for our penultimate day. You can see from the map that we follow the cliffs almost the entire distance of just 12.1km. The Bibbulmun huts are cleverly structured along the route to be more closely spaced at either end, so that hikers have a chance to develop their trail legs: yet another reason this thru-hike is exceptional.
Unlike northern Hemisphere hikes where sections become impassable in winter, you will never run out of time on the Bibbulmun, perfect for slower hikers. It can be hiked midwinter; only the peak summer months are dangerous due to heat and bushfires. And of course, it’s shorter than US Trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail, Appalachian Trail and Central Divide Trail.
Warm sunny blue skies at last! It has been an unusually wet spring, or at least unusual in recent times; SW Western Australia’s climate has changed significantly.
Views west to West Cape Howe and Perkins Beach. You have walked all that in the last few days, and beyond! It is really difficult to stay in the moment: your mind is racing ahead. With decades of daily meditation under his hat, Geoff is much better at taming his mind than am I. But every thru-hiker grows in the process.
We make a point of stopping and sitting on every seat to reflect. I can understand why a small number of hikers reach the end of the Track and immediately turn around to head back the other way. Your thinking changes on a thru-hike. Life simplifies and the challenges — and your response to them — are very much within your control. It is much easier to understand this without a myriad of irrelevant distractions. In everyday life, you are bombarded by stimuli and demands, but this is a good lesson to take from the track. You have practised it daily for several months: plenty of time for new habits and patterns of thinking to form and to stick.
Another place to stop. The windfarm is a famous hang gliding and paragliding site and this is one of the launches. The wind is crossing from the right — you can see the windlines on the water, one of the things you learn to read as a pilot — but alas we have no wings with us. We note many squalls brewing out to sea (another useful observational skill both pilots and thru-hikers develop), so we’re unsure how long the sun will last.
For a short distance, the Bibbulmun follows part of the Albany Windfarm Loop Trail, a nice option for those who’d like a little taste of this section.
Sun orchids (Thelymitra spp) require a certain amount of warmth and humidity to open the flowers, and we have had only a handful of days on this entire hike with these conditions. We have passed countless closed blooms but, today, we are in luck. Flowers normally open between 11am-3pm, a small window! Here, the Coastal Sun Orchid, T. granitora.
And everywhere spikes of the the Scented Sun Orchid, T. macrophylla.
18 turbines in total; we are not yet halfway. Albany is just around the corner beyond that headland. But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself again!
Thelymitras have incredible variation in colour and form, and also hybridise. I think this is T. graminea, but sometimes all you can do is say, “ It’s one of the blue thelys!”
Another seat from which to contemplate the building squalls to the east.
Still clear behind us to the west.
Two more Leopard Orchids, T. benthamiana. I have never seen as many as in the past few days.
And again the yellow form - a genetic quirk uncommon elsewhere but appearing in regular patches here.
Wonderfully healthy banksias. They are an essential food source for numerous native birds and animals. We have walked through many areas where the banksias have all but disappeared so it is great to see them here. In wet weather, hiker’s boots transport the phytophthera fungal spores that kill banksias, which is why it’s so important to stay on or close to the track.
One of the blue Thelys! Orchid enthusiasts can view our gallery of the 80+ species we have seen on the Bibbulmun.
Just look at that path! Wow!
But the rain and wind are coming, fast. We don our waterproofs at the last moment — it has been warm — and then, wham!, it goes from short sleeves weather to icy and hammering sideways rain. The last section to Sandpatch Hut has no more pictures because it buckets down the entire way.
A welcome respite from the wet when we reach Sandpatch. Time for a late lunch (it was too wet on the track) and a hot cuppa! The area around the new hut has been cleared — the old one burnt down in a bushfire — but now the wind howls around the space. This photo was taken the next morning.
The campsites around the edge of the clearing are quite small — some are too small for out Triplex tent — and two are very sloping, but it’s nice that they’re a distance from the hut.
When there’s a break in the rain, we quickly squeeze our tent into a spot. It is our last night on the track and we don’t want to spend it in a hut!
My last ‘Slower Hikers’ blah into the hut log book…
… and still going (there’s another half page as well)! I’ll mention some of these comments in our last post, tomorrow, but here is a taste:
“Our last night on the track after starting 72 days ago. Yes, that’s right: 72 days! Stopping at almost every hut, spending two or three nights in each town, and splitting the longer days into two shorter ones.
“Im not sure what we expected of the track. We’ve done numerous hikes before, but nothing like this. I suppose I expected the same thing as a shorter multiday hike, only longer. But it’s not like that at all, is it?
“When you’re on the track this long, it becomes just the way you’re living. It is the default, the norm, and towns are special treats…
“… When we started, I wasn’t sure whether we’d —well, I’d — make it. It’s a long way, 1000km. But Geoff pointed out it didn’t matter, we’d stop if it was no longer fun. All we are doing, he said, is going for a walk every day. So each morning one of us has asked the other,
‘What should we do today?’
‘I dunno — see a movie?’
‘Nah, don’t really feel like seeing a movie.’
‘I know — let’s go for a walk!’
“So each day, we have simply… gone for a walk.”
Later that day, as a parting gift, the rain clears. A ten minute walk from the hut takes us up onto the clifftop to a windy platform for one last sunset on the track. Our eyes are moist, but it’s not the wind.
