Blogs from Dwellingup, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

Day 16 Murray to Dookanelly Shelter 19.5 km A super chilly night, woke up at 4:30 to the sound of machinery?? Eventually got up and out by 07:37 still with 1.75L of water- enough to get me through the day and not have to dip into the river for a top up. A really misty, grey morning with brand new BT waugals to guide me. I really loved the contrasts of colour this morning- grey, grey saturated skies, silvery beaded cobwebs and vibrant green regenerated seedlings and shoots sprouting out of rich red muddy earth and scorched black trees. A visual feast. Some people dislike the burnt earth, I'm not one of them. Some of the more striking scenery for me is that which has been decimated by fire. Apart from the contrasting colours, the bushfires ... read more

Day 14 Dwellingup to Swamp Oak Shelter 13.3km A conflicted morning. Visited both the DPAW Office AND the Visitors Centre AND then contacted the BTF about how best to go about the impending track closure between Yarragil Form and Driver Road (taking out Murray Shelter from the track). I had contingency plans to cover it still being closed but was really hopeful that it would be open by now (I actually had about 3 variations of said contingency plans). After hours and hours and hours of talking to various knowledgeable people and walkers that had recent experience of the area, I plotted out a course that would take me on a good approximation of the track- it really was troubling me that I wouldn't be "doing a proper E2E" if I got a lift around the ... read more

Day 12 Mt Wells Shelter to Chadoora Shelter 15.6km Another shortish, easy walking day with absolutely no hurry. I don't leave till 08:30-ish as I have the opportunity to mess around with my packing technique- there is so much clean space to get everything out and re-roll, re-configure, re-think, and finally re-pack. Get completely distracted all the way down the hill, it is a beautiful still morning and apart from lots of interesting naturey things to look at there are lots of emerging hazards. Feet need to be carefully placed (see below). Lethal Death Traps (revenge of the animal and plant kingdoms) (Part 1) 1. Small animal digging holes- sometimes deviously covered by leaf matter- designed to fool you into twisting your ankle, or bare and open which will still get you if you're not paying ... read more

This weekend’s adventure was Lifecycle for Canteen (Off Road) we had done Lifecycle for Canteen on road, so this could not be that different could it?? My Alarm was set for 4.00 am, I woke at about 2.45 I got out of bed at 3.00am, I was under instruction from Caroline not to wake her until 4.30 am as we needed to be away by 5.00. Now our role was a funny one, not funny peculiar but funny ha ha, our first mission was to tow one of the toilets for the riders. When I was advised I was going to have to pick one of the toilets up from Kennard’s the hire people, who I have to say were graciously donating all the box trailers and toilets for this charitable event, Jack Dowling said to ... read more

this really is just an intro to some of the people we've met, not exciting. OK, we're on the road. It took some time finally getting ourselves out of Perth/Banksia Grove but we finally did it. Allow me to introduce some characters who will feature i our story before I carry on, sorry if this is boring but this is our memories here more than anything else. Obviously there is us, me the author (Nigel) who you will never hear of again because I always right in the first person, not like Jeff Fenech. Then there is Belinda and our kids Lachlan and Zali. In order of appearance, not importance we now have the people who have touched our lives in one way or another and will drop in and out of our story over the ... read more