Reflections V
Continuing the Journey
It's that time again. What a two years it has been since the last of these posts, and it's been a fun trip down memory lane collating all the photos you see above, which represent each trail or experience I have done over the last 24 months. Seeing them all in one place is a great reminder of how lucky I am to be able to visit all these cool places, and further motivation to keep on exploring my home state of Western Australia and beyond. If you're new to the website, hello and welcome. I'm Mark, a recently turn 39yo from Western Australia that enjoys long walks, pretty flowers and getting out in nature. Plenty has changed in the last two years, with the major highlight for me becoming a published author, not once but twice (technically three times if you include co-authoring a book). With WA not having a modern selection of walking guidebooks, it was a great opportunity to take what I have learned over the years in terms of photography and travel writing, and apply that to a physical guidebook that people could take with them on the trails.
As I've said many times over the years, having the website is a great catalyst for exploring new places, and having a reason to plan different trips, both locally and further afield. Half the fun of visiting the trails is editing up all the photos, sometimes up to months later, and reliving the experience. Over the past couple of years I've really gotten into flora and fauna identification, with this adding yet another element to the posts. Keen readers will have noticed that when you scroll over a photo in desktop mode (newer posts only), the name of the flora or fauna will appear, or if you open the photos in expand mode for desktop and mobile. That of course has meant that posts take a bit longer to do, but the trade-off is worth it, and it's been great to interact with the iNaturalist community.
With plenty to talk about over the past two years, let's get stuck in. It's going to be a long post, so if you're interested in reading the whole waffle, then take the opportunity to grab a drink and settle in.
2023 - Books and New Beginnings
Trails Visited - 115
Total Distance - 859km
Website Visits - 376,982 (down 2.04% on 2022)
Top Ten Trails on the Website
1) The Aquarium Yallingup
2) Eagle View Walk Trail
3) Stirling Ridge Walk
4) Roley Pool Reserve
5) Helena Pipehead Walk
6) Jarrahdale Railway Heritage Trail
7) Bald Head Walk Trail
8) Kitty's Gorge Walk Trail
9) Margaret River Heritage Trail
10) Ellis Brook Reserve
Starting 2023 in the best way possible, I woke up in a tent on the edge of an isolated beach on the bottom of Australia, having started the rugged South Coast Track the day before. What a way to bring in the new year, with perfect weather, good friends, and six more days of hiking left before we finished the trek. Having heard great things about the South Coast Track, I was not disappointed with the experience, and it was fantastic to get almost perfect weather, apart from not being able to see anything after hiking up to the top of the Ironbounds. Highlights from the week include Bathurst Harbour, Louisa River, the Ironbounds, the Prion Boat Crossing, Granite Beach, the temperate rainforest, and South Cape Rivulet. Finishing up the South Coast Track, I didn't want to head straight home, and initially I had booked in to do the Walls of Jerusalem as a follow-up.
Realising that I wanted something a bit more relaxing, I instead changed my plans to head out to Bruny Island for a few days to unwind, eat food, and of course hike a lot. I ended up taking in all of the marked trails on the island, and with an abundance of sunshine at this time of the year, I had plenty of time over the three days to really soak in the magic of the island before heading home. I wish I had more time to explore Bruny Island but it was time to go home and finish off the work I had to do for my first guidebook "Best Walks of South West WA". That was really fun to do, with mostly photos and maps to submit, and by March the final version was ready to be sent off to the printers. Seeing it all put together was amazing but it would be another three months before I had a physical copy in my hands. In the meantime, I visited the south coast in March for a quick getaway, along with getting out a couple of times around Easter to do the Mount Yetar WalkGPS Route (area was lovely but plagued with dirt bikes), and do a trail run at the Collie Trail Fest with my nieces.
In late April it was time for the second ever HikeWest Hiking Expo, and this was a great success that attracted a lot of people to the Perth Hills Discovery Centre to participate in guided hikes or visit one of the numerous stalls dedicated to trails. As HikeWest gets bigger (full disclosure, I'm on the board), hopefully more of these events occur to increase the exposure and participation (and funding) of hiking in WA. With the hiking season approaching, I visited an old favourite with friends, Whistlepipe Gully, before it was time to head off to warmer climates for the first of two winter holidays. To start June, Caris and I returned to Exmouth after not seeing a whale shark on our 2021 visit. This time we got a fantastic day in the waters of Ningaloo, and ended up swimming with several of these majestic creatures, along with seeing another orca hunt. Unfortunately an untimely swell rolled in after that experience and disrupted the excellent snorkeling on offer. By the end of the week it was back to reasonable visibility, and I got to visit some places I had wanted to visit last time including Pilgramunna Ledges, Osprey Bay, along with a trip out to Coral Bay to snorkel at Five Fingers Reef and Paradise Beach.Arriving back in Perth, I had scheduled in something that I had been meaning to have done for a while, getting my wisdom teeth out.
That knocked me out of action for a week but I was ready to go for the launch of my first guidebook, Best Walks of South West WA. It was a proud moment to get a physical copy in my hands and see all the hard work in a tangible object. I had set aside some time to do a whirlwind road trip to the South West to deliver copies to those that had pre-ordered, along with the retailers that had placed orders. The response was fantastic from everyone, and it was nice to see the support from many longtime followers, so thank you to everyone that bought a copy. July rolled around and it was time for the annual family holiday to somewhere warm, and this year Port Douglas was selected as the destination. This was a place I had wanted to visit for a while, as it was home to the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest. The tour out to see the Great Barrier Reef was definitely a highlight of the year, and visiting the Daintree was a special day, made better by the rainy conditions. One thing I'll never forget from this trip was hiking up Devil's Thumb when it started to rain and I became host to a great number of leeches. Given conditions were white-out near the summit, this was a rare hike where I turned around before the end. It was an enjoyable trip, and it was great to finally do some hikes in the land of the banana benders.
Entering the heart of the hiking season, and the time of year I really relish in the South West of WA, I took my youngest niece on her first overnight hike from One Tree Bridge to Boarding House Campsite, a place I hadn't visited since my first time there in 2017. It was great to show her what the Bibbulmun Track was all about, and of course it was a privilege to see Boarding House Bridge again. The Bibbulmun Track at this time was also celebrating it's 25th anniversary with an end to end walk that I intercepted out in the Kingdom, bringing them fresh fruit and soft drinks. It was good to meet everyone doing the walk, and be apart of the celebrations. August saw me take in a couple of favourite Perth trails that severely needed a refresh of photos for the website. The first of these was the Eagle View Walk Trail, which had undergone a redesign in the last couple of years to improve it, and I was impressed with the changes. The other was the Sixty Foot Falls Trail at Ellis Brook Reserve, and that's always an enjoyable hike. Spending a weekend in Collie with PTS guru Melina, we organised to head out to do the Yonga Trail the following weekend, electing to hike it in one day. Being peak wildflower season, it was good to be back, and I remembered to bring a back-up camera battery this time. To end winter I had made plans to visit the recently completed Wiilman Bilya near Collie as I had planned to write about it for a new Multi-Day Walks of Australia book I was contributing to. TLDR is that I didn't find it to be a good trail, I broke my camera in the rain, and finished after 2.5 days. If you want to hear the full story about it then listen to the 2023 Year in Review podcast episode over at Real Trail Talk (47:20 onwards).
Purchasing a new camera, I tested it out on the Numbat Trail, another Perth trail that needed a refresh, and while it was a fun hike, the extension that forms the longer Numbat Trail wasn't to my current taste (lots of weeds and steps). The following weekend I was out at Nyaania Creek to explore an unmarked trail that I had been wanting to visit, and while it was relatively okay for what it was, the popularity of that post when I released it in 2024 was quite a shock (my 3rd most popular page despite only being released in late May). I had my annual Spring flora survey of the Kingdom of Py before it was time for an action packed three week road trip along the South Coast to research and photograph over 40 trails for my next guidebook, Best Walks of South Coast WA. That was a full on trip that saw me visit Walpole, Denmark, Albany, the Stirling Range, Fitzgerald River National Park and Esperance, with most days involving multiple trails and lots of hiking. Looking back on it, it was a thoroughly enjoyable time, and I crossed off a lot of trails that I had wanted to do along the South Coast, including what I consider to be the best day hike in WA, the Le Grand Coastal Trail. That trip kept me busy writing for the rest of the year, along with buying a new home in the garden suburb of Hilton, moving just down the road from our old unit in Fremantle.
This had been a long time coming, and anyone reading this who's tried to buy a house in recent years will understand the frustration of attending home opens, only to be outbid by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollary-doos over and over again. We finally managed it, and I had the entire summer to plan out an elaborate garden remodel that had been my dream for a while but never had the space for at the old unit. Making the place our own over the summer was top priority but I also had a book to write, so this was a busy time, even if I wasn't hitting the trails. Speaking of trails, Christmas rolled around and on Boxing Day it was time to fly out to Tassie so I could finally hike the Overland Track. Having experienced travel disruptions in recent years, I gave myself a few days beforehand just in case, and if everything went to plan, then I'd have some time to explore the Central Highlands of Tasmania. Basing myself in Deloraine, I took advantage of the extended daylight hours to hike many trails including Alum Cliffs, Liffey Falls, Meander Falls and Cradle Mountain. What a great way to finish a full-on year with so many amazing trips to visit some stunning parts of Australia.
2024 - A Different Focus
Trails Visited - 55
Total Distance - 527km
Website Visits - 708,252 (up 187.24% on 2023)
Top Ten Trails on the Website
1) Stirling Ridge Walk
2) Wineglass Bay Loop
3) Nyaania Creek Walk Trail
4) The Aquarium Yallingup
5) Five Fingers Reef
6) Ellis Brook Reserve
7) Kitty's Gorge Walk Trail
8) Bald Head Walk Trail
9) Tarn Shelf Circuit
10) Roley Pool Reserve
I've never been much a late night party goer, even in my youthful times, so it wasn't a big deal to spend New Years Eve in my cramped accommodation in the middle of Launceston if the pay-off was an early morning pick-up to finally experience the Overland Track. Getting the Overland Track Transport shuttle out to the start of the track at Ronny Creek was an exciting time, with a week of hiking ahead of me to start 2024. Getting much better weather than my chilly hike up Cradle Mountain a few days prior, this would be the theme for the week, as we unusually for the Tasmanian Highlands only got one hour of rain, which happened as I was coming back down Mount Oakleigh. As one of the most recognisable multi-day hikes in Australia, there is a lot of hype surrounding it, and it lived up to it in my humble opinion. The new huts at Waterfall Valley, Lake Windermere and Kia Ora provided a good amount of space for everyone to stretch out and socialise after a day of hiking through some exquisite wilderness. I have really fond memories of the group we had for the week, and as you can see from the posts, there is no shortage of epic scenery to enjoy. The Overland Track gets a big tick from me, and it's one I'd quite happily do again, even if the booking process is a bit challenging.
Coming back home, we endured one of the hottest and driest summer/autumn period that I can remember, a big challenge if you're trying to reshape a space into a native garden paradise. The garden I inherited was a bit of a mixed bag, with lots of non-natives, a couple of patches of dead grass, and some raised garden beds that while useful, weren't going to be in my long term plans. First thing I did was get rid of some juvenile Jacaranda trees by the front door and replace them with a Marri and Peppermint. From there, I did more hoeing than I care to admit to, to rip out large sections of grass, flatten the space a little, planted a Butter Gum, and build a reclaimed brick path to provide better access to the new garden and the existing fruit trees along the fence. The raised garden beds were relocated to a patch of dead grass out the back, I planted my pride and joy, a semi-mature Ficifolia in an old fire pit I dug out, and the side of the house was prepped for more natives. Donovan had gifted me a Tuart he didn't have room for, along with returning a Wandoo that I had gifted him but wasn't going in his new garden, but I hit a snag when I went to dig holes for them and discovered a layer of concrete below most of this section of the garden. A couple of hot days on the jackhammer and the area was ready for planting, along with adjusting the existing limestone wall, and extending it to create more garden beds. Over the course of the summer and autumn I got most of what I wanted to achieve done, and I'm super happy with the results as everything grows. I'll do a post up eventually about the garden so you can see photos and the progress but for now you'll have to take my word for it. Just under 200 different species planted and I look forward to being a caretaker as everything grows upwards and outwards.
While all that was going on, and I was waiting for the temperatures to cool down (it was still 30C everyday until late May), I had a couple of small adventures to keep me going. In February we got a rare cooler day, and it coincided with accompanying neighbour Steve (aka Lead Guide of the Bibbulmun Track) to visit the new Nyingarn Bidi in Dwellingup that connects up Chadoora, Swamp Oak and Dwellingup to form a three day loop (post coming in 2025). Steve wanted to do the track notes for the Bibbulmun Track guidebook, and I wanted to see what the trail was like, so with his special access we could drop a car at each end and just walk the new section. The newly constructed section near Chadoora was fantastic but then it was just all vehicle tracks after Pinjarra-Williams Road, slightly disappointing but it is what it is. This was also the time when things really started to happen for a planned realignment of the Kingdom of Py, my maintenance section of the Bibbulmun Track. Ever since I inherited this section in 2016, I was keen to get it off Wilshusen Road, a long stretch of scenic but not very interesting track that is frequented by local bogans, who leave their empty alcohol containers all over the place. With support from the Bibbulmun Track Foundation, it was time to get a route mapped out, and over the course of the year I made eight trips out here to survey and flag out a proposed realignment that might one day have a track built along it.
With a tremendous amount of help and patience from Mark, one of the Bibbulmun support volunteers, a final route has been chosen that goes through some fantastic forest, and removes about 90% of the vehicle track walking. I hope this progresses in 2025/26 as a full build that I can be apart of, but we'll see. Visiting every month from winter to late spring, I got to see a lot of species of wildflower and orchids that I'd not seen out there, which was a real thrill to see (and catalogue). I love the area, and the new alignment will make it much better for walkers in terms of variety, quality and overall experience. Eventually the temperatures in Perth cooled down and the rains arrived. To celebrate, I took a day trip out to Toodyay to check out a couple of trails and look for the Winter Spider Orchid, which ended up being a success. While everything was really dry, it was nice to be out hiking, and the Wandoo Woodlands were still their vibrant self. As mentioned before, over the winter I made several trips to the Kingdom, and along the way I'd make a point to stop in at Island Point Reserve and Manea Park, with those two places quickly becoming favourite locations to explore as the wildflowers and orchids started to come out. In July it was time for the annual family holiday, and thankfully Kalbarri was chosen, a place I had put on my to-visit list for 2024, so that made it easier to organise. After the dry autumn, Kalbarri had experienced a really wet winter, which was a double edged sword, as it provided great waterfalls you wouldn't normally see but also meant that Z-Bend was closed.
Making the most of my time there, I really enjoyed the hiking around Kalbarri, with plenty of variety ranging from the stunning landscapes on the Loop Walk to the impressive coastal cliffs of the Bigurda Trail. I also ticked off a bucket list item by visiting the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, doing a short walk and getting in the cold waters to snorkel the coral reef off East Wallabi Island. I extended this trip to include an expedition further north to visit the Kennedy Range, a place that looked like it would be my cup of tea. It turned out to be that way, and I had a great time hiking through gorges and along the edge of the ancient range inland from Carnarvon. All up it was a great trip, capped off with a visit to the Yued Ponar Trail in Leusuer National Park on the way home, and there is now a bit more depth to my Coral Coast range of hikes. With August bringing about the start of the orchid season, after getting my eyes lasered (fantastic improvement to my quality of life), I ventured out to Wongan Hills for the day in search of great trails and a bounty of orchids. I found both here, and was amazed at all the options for an area with a relatively small population. At the time of writing I'm yet to tackle those posts for the website but I'm looking forward to revisiting that day as I remember it with great fondness. Small trips were the flavour of 2024, and another fun one was to dust off my mountain bike on another Kingdom visit, and ride the Timberline Trail in Nannup. Although extremely wet, I had a blast and it was nice to ride the full loop after passing it so many times riding on the Munda Biddi.
Spring time was relatively quiet compared to previous years, with no annual leave left in the bank, there was no epic road trip or interstate holiday. I still got out when I could, including the aforementioned trips to the Kingdom for flora surveys, along with a really fun day trip to Dryandra Woodlands National Park to go orchid appreciating, and seeing if I could see a Numbat (no luck). I've got a couple of hikes left to do in Dryandra, and I think next time I'll make a weekend of it by going to camp. Donovan had organised a training hike on the Bibbulmun Track for his friends ahead of their NZ trip later in the year, so Bonny and I tagged along to do the Perth Hills Discovery Centre to Mount Dale over two days. I missed doing overnight hikes like this, and we managed to see a decent amount of orchids, which slowed Bonny and I up. A couple of weeks later I joined Steve for another trip to visit a new section of the Bibbulmun, this time the realignment between Dookanelly and Possum Springs. This was one of the more problematic sections in terms of vehicle track walking, and I really enjoy the new alignment, although DBCA could have not torched it horribly, right after it was built. The rest of the year was very quiet, with only a late afternoon hike on the Dell to South Ledge route, and another Kingdom visit. 2024 done, another enjoyable year filled with fond memories.
General Thoughts - Here we are, another two years of living on Planet Earth under my belt, and what a privilege it continues to be. After years of being an interwebs only writer, I've written 2.1 guidebooks now, and it's a great feeling to be published author, even if we're about 20 years past the peak of needing a physical guidebook. I still buy guidebooks when I travel because I prefer something to refer to, along with it being more a trusted source of information in places where something like The Life of Py doesn't exist. Perhaps with the way AI generated content is going and the percentage of the internet that is being filled with non-human generated content, the trusty old guidebook will have a comeback as a medium. A big thank you has to be extended to everyone who has purchased a guidebook in the last 18 months, I really appreciate it, and I've not seen one in a second hand bookshop, so I'll take that as a positive.
As you can see from the 2024 numbers, website visits really picked up, almost surpassing the crazy year that was 2020, when people were exploring more of WA thanks to the travel restrictions. That's been great to see, and from the feedback I've heard, people seem to really enjoy having the website there to ease their concerns about certain trails, along with highlighting ones they might not have heard of, or considered. It's always great to see people out and about on trails, discovering something they didn't know was out there, or simply taking time out to be by themselves or with loved one.
I'm getting to the end of available trails in Perth and South West, and unfortunately I don't think we are getting a raft of new ones in the next decade at least. The recent developments in the hiking space seem to be about improving existing trails like Bald Head and Eagle View, or just slapping some trail markers on existing vehicle tracks and calling it a day (looking at you Wiilman Bilya and Nyingarn Bidi). There are many reasons for this, with the main one being the DBCA Trails and Parks Departments being horribly underfunded compared to Tassie or NSW, along with all the good land for trails being locked away under Water Corp's Policy 13 about access to water catchment areas (unless you're a mining company). There was a lot of good work done with the recent Hiking Strategy document but all that seems to have done is create a document with nice pictures and good intentions, without any follow through. We still have an amazing variety of trails in WA but certain types of trails like half to full day loops, and shorter multi-day trails are somewhat lacking. This was one of the main drivers of me joining HikeWest, and things are progressing but there's only so much a small organisation can do when it isn't a land manager.
Social media continues to change and not for the better in my opinion. I used to get excited to share a new trail on Facebook and Instagram but now it feels more like a chore to schedule everything in, just so the algorithm can show it to less than 10% of my followers. When I'm getting less engagement with my posts than when I had a fraction of the followers, it's really disappointing. Everything seems to be geared towards paying for views, or doing short form reels that aren't my style. I still have the die-hard supporters, and I love them for it, but when someone new follows I have this pessimistic thought of "what's the point, you aren't going to see my content anyway". Whinging about social media really is a first world problem, so I'll put away my tiny violin and talk about something more positive (I hope), the future.
After getting stuck in a bit of a malaise towards the end of 2024 in terms of my fitness and motivation, I'm determined to right that ship in 2025. I'm back on the bike both figuratively and literally, as I aim to get back to peak fitness for cycling, running and hiking, so I can do some pretty fun and challenging trips in 2025. In amongst that I might be writing a couple more books, along with catching up on the 32 website posts I have in the backlog, so it's going to be a busy time.
If you're still reading then I'd love to hear from you in the comments section. It could be something random, a fun hiking story or just to say hello.
Happy Trails in 2025 and beyond, and keep getting out there and experiencing as many adventures as possible.