Remember that REALLY wet weekend we had in October, where it poured for two days straight – yeah, The Chatty Hiker and I decided that was a GREAT weekend to go hiking… and we weren’t wrong!
We had packed our overnight bags, bought some new gear and scoped out a comfortable overnight hut on the Bibbulmun and then the Chatty Hiker’s husband broke his hand and it was all over. -Sad Face-
However, we managed to salvage a day hike from the weekend so we changed our plans and headed out to Kalamunda to tackle a short stage of the Bibbulmun with our full overnight packs to see how we fare with the additional pack weight.
Stretching from Fern Road to Mundaring Weir is an approximately 8.5 kilometre stretch of the Bibbulmun Track passing through the Hewett’s Hill Campsite at halfway, offering a perfect opportunity to make camp and cook up some camp fire food! *Be mindful of fire restrictions. We made it to Hewett’s Hill and checked out the hut, found some very wet firewood and (after a bit of trial and error) made a small fire and cooked up some noodles (I know, not the best food choice – I didn’t become The Heavy Hiker on dehydrated vegetables!).
We encountered an overly ambitious magpie who was clearly used to picking off the leftovers of visitors to Hewett’s Hill; only he was so impatient he literally tried to steal it between my fork and my mouth, resulting in raucous laughter from The Chatty Hiker.
Thankfully, we made it out on the trail for wildflower season and Kalamunda didn’t disappoint! We encountered some beautiful varieties and many walk groups out there specifically to explore the region for specific specimens. I don’t know much about wildflowers but they sure were pretty!
The trail is undulating with some short, sharp inclines to keep things interesting. The beauty of Kalamunda is you’re never far from something pretty to look at and having the weir pop into and out of view for the duration of your journey gives you something to look towards as you trudge on through. 
The Chatty Hiker and I are committed to tackling more sections of the Bibbulmun next season – so I’m planning multiple day trips and a couple of overnighters to complete the Dwellingup section. How lucky are we Perth-ites to have these trails on our doorstep!
With the weather warming up and many aerial burns planned in the coming weeks affecting sections of the Bibbulmun I’m basically finished for the season and will only be tackling short local trails over the summer months. So for now, this will be my last post for a few short months.
But if you still have a weekend or two up your sleeve this section of the Bibbulmun is worth checking out!
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